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■iSp  (Scorjc  |).  palmer 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Harvard  University 


THE  ODYSSEY  OF  HOMER.  Books  l-XII.  The  Text 
and  an  English  Prose  Version. 

THE  ODYSSEY.  Complete  An  English  Translation 
in  Prose. 

THE  ANTIGONE  OF  SOPHOCLES.  Translated  into 
English.    With  an  Introduction. 

THE   FIELD  OF   ETHICS. 

THE  NATURE  OF  GOODNESS. 

THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM. 

THE  ENGLISH  WORKS  OF  GEORGE  HERBERT, 
3  volumes.  Newly  arranged  and  annotated,  and  con- 
sidered in  relation  to  his  life,  by  G.  H.  Palmer. 

THE  ENGLISH  POEMS  OF  GEORGE  HERBERT. 
Edited  by  George  H.  Palmer. 

INTIMATIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY  IN  THE  SONNETS 
OF   SHAKESPEARE. 

FORMATIVE  TYPES   IN    ENGLISH    POETRY. 

THE   LIFE  OF  ALICE  FREEMAN   PALMER. 

THE  TEACHER,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS  AND  AD 
DRESSES  ON  EDUCATION.  By  George  H.  Palmer 
and  Alice  Freeman  Palmer. 

A  MARRIAGE  CYCLE.  By  Alice  Freeman  Palmer. 
Edited  by  George  H.  Palmer. 

A  SERVICE  IN  MEMORY  OF  ALICE  FREEMAN 
PALMER.     Edited  by  George  H.  Palmer. 

SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  Riverside  Edu- 
cational Monog'raphs. 

THE  IDEAL  TEACHER.  Riverside  Educational  Mono- 
graphs. 

ETHICAL  AND  MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  THE 
SCHOOLS.     Riverside  Educational  Monographs. 

TRADES  AND  PROFESSIONS.  Riverside  Educational 
Monographs. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston     New  York     Chicago     San  Francisco 


FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 


FORMATIVE  TYPES 
IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

THE  EARL  LECTURES 
OF  1917 

BY 
GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COINIPANY 

^t)e  ClitieTiiiDe  prejtfjtf  Cambcida^ 


139268 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY  GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 
ALL  KIGHTS  RESERVED 

Btcblished  November,  iqi8 


V 


PREFACE 


The  substance  of  this  book  was  delivered  as 
"^       a  series  of  lectures  on  the  Earl  Foundation  be- 
fore the  Pacific  Theological  Seminary  in  Berke- 
ley, California,  during  the  spring  of  1917.  The 
subject  was  one  which  had  long  interested  me. 
I  had  spoken  on  it  before  the  Lowell  Institute 
in  Boston  in  1913  and  subsequently  on  several 
occasions  had  found  for  it  eager  auditors  and 
^      critics  among  college  students.    This  frequent 
t      traversing  of  the  same  ground  has  helped  me 
a::     to  perceive  more  plainly  the  path  to  be  fol- 
lowed and  has  controlled  the  inclination  to 
turn  to  this  side  or  that  in  search  of  better 
prospects. 
'^  ■  -         My  aim  is  a  narrow  one.   The  book  is  not  a 
history  of  English  poetry,  not  even  an  outline. 
At  only  half  a  dozen  periods  in  the  long  and 
magnificent  course  of  that  poetry  do  I  examine 
M     it,  those  periods  being  separated  by  intervals 
o      widely  dissimilar  and  occupied  by  poets  not 
always  of  the  first  rank.   Some  of  the  greatest 
names  in  our  literature  are  not  touched  at  all. 
The  drama  is  omitted  altogether;  and  I  have 


vi  PREFACE 

not  inquired  how  far  changes  in  prose  writing 
attended  those  traced  here  in  poetry.  Even  my 
seven  chosen  torch-bearers  I  have  dealt  with 
very  imperfectly,  turning  to  them  only  for  the 
light  they  throw  on  the  connected  march  of 
mind. 

In  my  judgment  the  English  understanding 
of  poetry  has  unfolded  itself  slowly,  passing 
through  certain  well-marked  crises  or  epochs 
at  each  of  which  has  stood  a  revolter  from  past 
practice  who,  setting  up  antagonistic,  yet  really 
supplemental,  conceptions  of  poetry  has  thrown 
open  tracts  of  emotion  which  our  beautiful  art 
had  not  previously  touched.  Of  course  minor 
changes  of  this  sort  occur  continually.  I  have 
wished  to  fix  attention  on  the  half-dozen  fun- 
damental, logical  and  productive  crises  which 
have  brought  us  the  rich  poetry  we  now  possess 
and  may  yet  bring  us  richer  still. 

There  are  dangers  in  such  an  undertaking. 
No  important  change  comes  about  without 
long  preparation,  however  great  the  genius 
who  finally  perceives  its  significance  and  gives 
it  recognizable  form.  So  condensed  an  account 
as  mine  is  apt  to  make  history  appear  a  thing 
of  leaps  and  bounds,  as  if  settled  practice  sud- 
denly gave  way  to  novelty.  But  I  have  thought 


PREFACE  vii 

this  danger  worth  incurring  if  I  could  so  bring 
out  more  clearly  the  type  toward  which  many 
tendencies  converged  and  present  it  embodied 
in  him  who  first  fully  comprehended  it. 

I  am  sorry,  too,  that  my  plan  obliges  me 
to  pass  by  many  important  writers  whom  one 
might  naturally  expect  to  find  here.  Where, 
for  example,  are  Sidney  and  Shakspere  with 
their  sonnets,  where  Herrick,  Marvell,  Dryden, 
Gray,  Byron,  Keats,  Shelley  — superb  poets  all 
—  preeminent,  many  readers  will  think,  above 
several  I  have  chosen?  But  they  were  not 
types.  While  all  subsequent  verse  undoubt- 
edly shows  their  influence,  they  did  not  estab- 
lish a  crisis  and  form  a  turning-point.  More 
plausibly  may  it  be  objected  that  there  is  no 
such  epochal  separation  between  Tennyson 
and  Browning  as  between  the  earlier  mem- 
bers of  my  group.  In  justification  I  would 
plead  that  two  great  poets  living  so  near  us, 
and  with  whose  writings  we  are  so  familiar, 
offer  an  exceptional  opportunity  for  studying 
minutely  and  in  less  emphasized  form  the 
whole  conception  of  a  type. 

For  one  huge  omission,  however,  I  have  little 
excuse  beside  incompetence.  Milton  was  too 
big  for  me.  I  reverence  him  beyond  any  other 


viii  PREFACE 

inventor  of  harmonies  and  feel  that  without 
eyes  he  saw  more  deeply  into  beauty  than  any 
of  our  other  poets  have  seen  with  them.  But 
on  that  account  I  did  not  think  I  could  ex- 
pound him  in  any  such  space  as  was  at  my 
disposal.  And,  after  all,  was  not  Wordsworth 
right  in  thinking  him  solitary  as  a  star?  In  a 
group  he  is  out  of  scale.  No  doubt  all  the  world 
was  changed  as  soon  as  Milton  wrote.  But 
he  left  no  school.  Men  opened  their  eyes  and 
ears,  wondered  and  were  glad.  But  the  wise 
ones  went  on  their  own  way,  and  only  the 
little  ones  imitated.  He  showed  no  path  for 
others  to  follow.  None  but  a  Milton  walks 
steadily  there. 

In  dealing  with  individual  poets  my  method 
is  somewhat  peculiar.  I  attempt  to  criticize 
from  within  out,  not,  as  is  more  usual,  from 
without  in.  That  is,  after  gaining  pretty  full 
acquaintance  with  a  poet  I  am  apt  to  discover 
in  him  some  central  principle  from  which  most 
of  his  peculiarities  radiate.  To  seize  this  cen- 
tral type  or  interest  and  through  it  to  give  a 
unitary  view  of  the  man  seems  to  me  the  true 
aim  of  criticism.  One  may  easily  press  the 
method  too  far  and  thus  regard  complexity  and 
discord  too  little.    Few  of  us  are  completely 


PREFACE  be 

harmonized.  Yet  p)oets  tend  toward  harmony 
about  in  proportion  to  their  greatness,  and  in 
this  book  none  but  great  men  appear,  I  shall 
not  distort  them  if  I  show  each  as  moving  from 
something  Hke  a  single  centre. 

At  the  close  of  each  of  these  lectures,  as  origi- 
nally delivered,  I  read  for  half  an  hour  from 
the  poet  discussed.  Criticism,  taken  apart  from 
that  which  is  discussed,  is  arid  and  blinding 
stuff.  I  accordingly  at  first  thought  of  printing 
after  each  lecture  a  selection  of  ''illustrative 
material."  But  seeing  that  this  would  double 
the  size  of  my  book,  and  possibly  render  it  less 
attractive  to  those  who  found  there  poetry 
already  pretty  familiar,  I  abandoned  the  plan 
and  have  substituted  brief  lists,  sufficient,  how- 
ever, to  enable  the  novice  to  bring  my  judg- 
ments to  the  test. 

Perhaps  a  word  of  apology  is  needed  for  here 
venturing  outside  my  province.  My  profes- 
sional work  has  been  in  Philosophy.  To  the 
poets  I  have  listened  only  as  an  amateur.  Yet 
every  one  is  wise,  whatever  his  occupation,  in 
cherishing  some  collateral  interest  which  pro- 
duces nothing  for  the  market,  is  amenable  to 
no  social  standard,  and  is  valued  simply  for 
sweetening  his  own  life.    Such  an  unpaid  in- 


X  PREFACE 

vigorator  has  poetry  been  to  me  during  a  long 
life.  On  nearing  the  close  I  am  glad  to  give  it 
publicity  and  commend  it  as  a  privy  councillor 
to  others. 

Harvard  University 
Aiigust  1,  1918 


CONTENTS 

I.  Introductory 1 

II.  Geoffrey  Chaucer 31 

III.  Edmund  Spenser 63 

IV.  George  Herbert 99 

V.  Alexander  Pope 135 

VI.  William  Wordsworth       ....  181 

VII.  Alfred  Tennyson 223 

VIII.  Robert  Browning 271 


FORMATIVE  TYPES 
IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

I 

Introductory 


FORMATIVE  TYPES 
IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

I 

INTRODUCTORY 

What  is  poetry?  What  its  function?  Where 
run  the  bounds  which  part  it  from  other  varie- 
ties of  human  expression?  Why  have  certain 
special  forms  of  rhythmic  utterance  been  gen- 
erally thought  necessary  for  conveying  emo- 
tional appeal?  What  value  has  that  appeal? 
Why  do  many  persons  on  reaching  maturity 
persistently  neglect  poetry  while  others  tumult- 
uously  acclaim  it?  Perhaps  poetry,  like  human 
reason  itself,  is  too  deeply  entwined  with  the 
roots  of  our  being  to  be  detached,  inspected, 
and  separately  defined.  Certainly  critics 
equally  competent  have  given  widely  different 
answers  to  the  questions  here  proposed.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  settle  their  contentions.  On 
the  contrary,  I  am  more  anxious  to  stir  my 
reader  into  thought,  inconsistent  thought, 
about  these  beautiful  mysteries  than  to  ease 
him    with    plausible    solutions.     Yet    certain 


4    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

dominant  conceptions  about  the  substance, 
form,  and  importance  of  poetry  so  shape  the 
discussions  of  this  book  that  it  seems  only  fair 
to  state  them  plainly  in  an  introductory  chap- 
ter and  thus  enable  the  reader  as  we  proceed 
to  reject  or  accept  the  evidence  adduced. 

Our  first  business  will  be  a  negative  clearing 
of  the  ground.  Certain  misconceptions  must 
be  disposed  of.  So  soon  as  we  have  determined 
what  poetry  is  not,  we  shall  be  in  better  condi- 
tion for  understanding  what  it  essentially  is. 

Poetry  is  commonly  identified  with  verse 
and  contrasted  with  prose.  But  on  reflection 
few  will  persist  in  the  error;  for  a  large  body  of 
tolerable  verse  has  no  poetic  quality.  Nothing 
in  its  substance  requires  the  verse  form.  For 
effecting  any  purpose  it  might  as  well  have 
been  written  in  prose.  Verse  however  conveys 
to  the  ear  a  peculiar  pleasure;  and  when  there 
is  nothing  else  to  be  conveyed,  the  writer  who 
drops  that  drops  all.  Verse,  therefore,  always 
giving  us  something  agreeable,  is  peculiarly 
tempted  into  emptiness  and  needs  for  its  justi- 
fication only  occasionally  to  deviate  into  sense. 
To  maintain  that  a  succession  of  sweet  sounds 
makes  poetry  is  much  like  finding  prose  in  a 
dozen  words  taken  at  random  from  the  die- 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

tionary.  Even  if  we  regard  rhythm  and  metre 
as  equally  essential  to  poetry,  as  words  are  to 
prose,  they  are  essential  merely  to  its  structure 
and  not  to  its  substance. 

How  far  that  substance  can  be  detached 
from  its  usual  outward  form  is  an  unsettled 
question.  The  great  experimenters  of  the  past 
—  the  translators  of  the  Psalms,  Nicholas 
Breton  in  his  "Fantastickes,"  Milton  in 
"Samson  Agonistes"  and  in  passages  of  his 
prose  works,  Traherne  in  his  joyous  outpour- 
ings, Jeremy  Taylor  in  his  sermons,  Ossian  in 
heroic  song,  Blake  in  mystic  vision,  Carlyle 
and  Ruskin  in  social  denunciation  or  sesthetic 
rhapsody.  Whitman  in  democratic  chant  — 
have  gone  far,  but  not  far  enough  to  satisfy  the 
rebellious  poets  of  to-day.  These  would  abolish 
metre  altogether,  cut  their  lines  with  scissors, 
and  give  us  so  little  of  rhythm  as  to  be  audible 
to  few  beside  themselves.  Personally  I  would 
not  assert  that  poetry  must  perish  under  such 
conditions.  I  have  seen  instances  of  its  sur- 
vival where  the  wrench  has  been  severe.  I 
merely  say  that  poetry  able  to  withstand  such 
dislocation  will  call  for  a  twofold  emotional 
power.  The  poet  has  cast  away  aids  which 
centuries  have  experimented  to  fashion.    Un- 


6    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

supported  by  these,  to  hold  his  poetry  upright 
will  require  a  stalwart  arm.  But  the  mere 
attempts,  clumsy  as  they  usually  are,  testify 
to  the  sound  feeling  that  poetry  is  larger  than 
verse  and  should  not  be  confused  with  it. 

A  second  misconception,  and  one  into  which 
both  individuals  and  nations  in  their  early 
years  are  certain  to  fall,  is  that  poetry  is 
merely  an  impressive  means  for  reporting  some 
incident,  character,  story,  or  wise  thought. 
In  reality  the  description  of  what  is  seen,  the 
telling  an  interesting  tale,  the  statement  of  a 
valued  truth,  in  short  any  mere  reproduction 
of  fact  is  something  quite  apart  from  the  busi- 
ness of  poetry.  Yet  great  poets  have  made  this 
mistake,  and  many  readers  look  for  nothing 
else.  Early  English  history  was  repeatedly 
written  in  rhymed  "fourteeners,"  and  no 
doubt  history  was  easier  to  remember  in  this 
form.  Drayton  in  his  "Polyolbion"  wrote  a 
complete  geographic  account  of  England  in 
verse.  Sir  John  Davies  versified  human  psy- 
chology in  his  "Nosce  Teipsum";  and  Phineas 
Fletcher,  in  his  "Purple  Island,"  human  physi- 
ology. What  has  all  tliis  to  do  with  poetry, 
we  may  well  ask.  Dryden  composed  his 
"Religio  Laici"  to  demonstrate  the  iniquity 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

of  the  Catholic  Church.  And  when  in  later  life 
he  himself  became  a  Catholic,  he  wrote  "The 
Hind  and  the  Panther"  to  prove  the  errors  of 
the  English  Church  and  the  certainty  of  Cath- 
olic doctrine.  But  how  unimportant  for  poetry 
are  such  matters  of  observation,  description, 
and  argument!  I  might  be  a  Catholic  or 
Protestant  and  still  fuid  much  to  admire  in 
both  of  Dryden's  poems;  for  the  poetry  would 
lie  elsewhere  than  in  the  doctrine.  And  in  the 
same  way,  though  I  cared  nothing  for  Dray- 
ton's geography  or  Davies'  psychology,  I  could 
not  fail  on  every  few  pages  of  their  books  to 
come  upon  glorious  poetic  passages  which  are 
in  marked  contrast  with  their  prosaic  surround- 
ings. In  each  case  what  constitutes  the  main 
theme  is  not  poetry  at  all  and  might  be  ex- 
pressed more  neatly  in  prose.  Whatever  poetry 
is  there  is  independent  of  that  theme.  No,  we 
may  altogether  rule  out  from  the  field  of  poetry 
matters  of  fact,  or  at  least  may  count  them 
collateral  and  subordinate,  a  mere  framework 
for  the  display  of  costly  material.  The  child's 
fanc}'  that  when  he  is  entertained  by  a  good 
story,  jinglingly  told,  he  is  enjoying  poetry, 
must  be  abandoned.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  poetry  is  not  concerned  with  facts. 


8    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

We  test  its  worth  by  asking  if  it  is  beautiful  or 
ugly,  not  if  it  is  true  or  false. 

There  remains  the  gravest  of  all  misconcep- 
tions. We  are  apt  to  think  of  poetry  as  serving 
some  useful  end,  aiming  in  some  way  to  make 
its  readers  better.  We  Americans  are  pecul- 
iarly liable  to  this  error,  so  slender  is  our 
aesthetic  sense,  so  swollen  our  practical.  We 
are  always  asking  what  a  thing  is  for.  But 
poetry  is  not  for  anything  except  itself.  It 
seeks  to  produce  beauty  and  counts  beauty 
its  own  excuse  for  being.  Its  quality  should 
be  judged  independently  of  whatever  moral 
principles  or  practical  measures  may  chance  to 
profit  by  it.  About  a  third  of  Whittier's  writ- 
ings are  devoted  to  the  denunciation  of  slavery, 
and  they  have  perished  with  that  which  they 
chivalrously  attacked.  Mrs.  Browning  wrote 
page  after  page  in  advocacy  of  an  alliance  be- 
tween France  and  Italy,  and  we  do  not  read 
those  pages  now.  Kipling  has  employed  poetry 
to  eulogize  Tory  imperialism;  but  since  much 
of  it  is  good  poetry,  the  liberal  enjoys  it  no  less 
than  the  conservative.  To  take  a  case  from 
America:  our  enjoyment  of  William  Vaughn 
Moody's  "Ode  in  Time  of  Hesitation"  should 
not  depend  on  our  view  of  this  country's  duty 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

to  the  Philippines.  Poetry  is  not  dogmatic, 
nor  need  our  poets  be  preachers  with  a  mes- 
sage. We  do  not  ask  if  a  symphony  by  Bee- 
thoven is  true  or  of  good  moral  tendency. 
Enough  that  it  is  beautiful. 

So  much  for  what  poetry  is  not.  Its  province 
IS  distinct  from  that  of  observation  or  conduct. 
And  from  how  large  a  part  of  human  interest 
is  it  tlius  excluded!  Our  chief  business  in  life 
is  to  become  acquainted  with  facts  and  to  learn 
to  separate  the  false  from  the  true.  Most  of  the 
remainder  is  covered  by  conduct,  those  prac- 
tical activities  where  we  discriminate  right 
from  wrong.  What  remains  then  for  the  poet 
after  he  has  cast  away  the  cognitive  intellect 
and  the  directing  will.f^  Beyond  these  lies  the 
field  of  emotion,  all  that  part  of  individual 
experience  which  is  not  concerned  with  ascer- 
taining truth  or  achieving  ends.  The  feelings, 
the  varying  moods  of  the  poet,  are  what  he 
writes  about.  Strictly  speaking,  poetry  has 
but  a  single  subject,  the  mind  of  the  poet.  We 
readers  are  interested  in  accompanying  that 
mind  and  in  adding  its  emotions  to  our  own. 
We  might,  then,  offer  a  preliminary  definition 
of  poetry,  considered  from  the  poet's  point  of 
view,  and  call  it  the  conscious  transmission  of 


10    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

an  emotional  experience  to  another  imagina- 
tive mind. 

A  striking  bit  of  evidence  that  the  real 
ground  of  poetry  does  thus  lie  within  the  poet 
himself,  rather  than  in  the  facts  which  purport 
to  be  his  subject,  is  furnished  by  a  group  of 
poems  whose  professed  aim  is  objective  de- 
lineation. Shakspere's  *' Sonnets,"  Spenser's 
"Astrophil,"  Milton's  "Lycidas,"  Shelley's 
"Adonais,"  Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam," 
Arnold's  "Thyrsis,"  Woodberry's  "North 
Shore  Watch,"  form  a  majestic  series  of  la- 
ments for  a  friend  whose  memory  they  would 
snatch  from  oblivion.  Yet  while  they  give  a 
pungent  sense  of  the  grief  of  the  mourner,  in 
all  alike  he  who  is  mourned  is  but  thinly 
painted.  What  the  facts  of  his  life  were,  his 
intellectual  interests,  the  detailed  traits  of  his 
character,  or  even  what  was  his  outward  ap- 
pearance we  do  not  learn.  He  in  whose  honor 
the  poem  was  written  remains  a  shadow,  while 
our  interest  in  him  who  has  suffered  the  loss  is 
deep  and  poignant. 

The  transmission  of  a  mood,  however,  is  no 
simple  matter.  Three  difficulties  attend  it: 
vagueness  of  the  original  mood,  entanglement 
with  other  mental  factors,  and  imperfect  mas- 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

tery  of  the  means  of  transmission.  The  poet's 
rank  is  fixed  by  the  way  in  which  he  meets 
these  obstacles.  The  most  serious  of  them  is 
the  first.  Adverse  or  favorable  circumstances 
excite  feeling  in  us  all,  but  the  feeling  is  usually 
vague.  Many  of  us  can  hardly  distinguish  the 
emotional  coloring  of  one  hour  from  another. 
We  pass  our  time  largely  in  routine,  and  only 
occasionally  does  an  incident  induce  a  mood 
so  vivacious  and  sohd  as  to  hold  our  attention 
for  more  than  a  brief  space.  Now,  good  poetry 
is  the  expression  of  high  emotion.  Whether 
prompted  by  direct  experience  or  by  sympa- 
thetic imagination,  the  feeling  must  be  abun- 
dant, fresh,  piercing,  clearly  outlined,  if  it  will 
move  the  imagination  of  a  reader.  In  it  there 
should  be  stock  enough  for  the  poet  to  develop, 
hold  enough  on  the  world  of  fact  to  render  it 
credible,  and  dignity  enough  in  its  theme  to 
win  enduring  approval.  Most  of  us,  however, 
ex-perience  no  such  weighty  emotions.  To  the 
men  of  genius  we  turn  to  obtain  them.  Nine 
tenths  of  ordinary  verse  shows  little  emotional 
experience.  Its  writers  cannot  make  poetry 
because  they  have  nothing  to  make  it  of. 

Or  may  tlie  seeming  deficiency  be  partly  due 
to  a  different  cause?   Feeling  does  not  present 


12    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

itself  alone,  but  in  company  with  observation, 
reflection,  purpose,  and  effort,  by  all  which  it  is 
blurred.  Yet  while  the  ingredients  of  a  mental 
state  cannot  be  altogether  parted,  they  can  be 
so  discriminated  that  attention  becomes  fixed 
on  some  of  a  certain  kind  to  the  comparative 
neglect  of  others.  This  sorting  is  the  poet's 
work.  He  throws  into  the  foreground  those 
emotional  elements  which  in  the  experience 
of  the  common  man  are  overlaid  by  practical 
affairs.  In  daily  life  judgments  of  fact  and  of 
right  cannot  be  passed  by  without  seriously 
stopping  the  current  of  feeling.  Perhaps  these 
poets  do  not  so  much  impart  what  they  alone 
possess  as  reveal  to  us  what  we  too  already 
blindly  have.  Their  report,  accordingly,  we 
recognize  as  veracious  and  familiar,  and  are 
grateful  to  them  for  revealing  our  hidden 
wealth.  Without  their  aid  we  could  not  have 
detached  it  from  its  context. 

Or  if  some  piercing  experience  has  thrown 
into  exceptional  prominence  a  certain  phase  of 
feeling,  how  small  is  the  chance  that  we  can 
deliver  it  unabated  to  another  person!  As  well 
expect  an  ordinary  man  to  paint  a  landscape 
merely  because  its  beauty  is  daily  spread  before 
his  chamber  window.   Receiving  emotion  and 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

expressing  it  are  not  the  same  thing.  The 
latter  requires  a  special  aptitude,  inventive- 
ness, practice,  readiness  to  comprehend  an- 
other's mind,  abihty  to  keep  feeling  fresh 
under  inspection,  and  a  gradual  mastery  of 
those  artistic  agencies  which  time  has  proved 
to  have  the  power  of  appeal. 

Accordingly  I  have  felt  obliged  to  clog  my 
definition  of  poetry  with  an  adjective  and  call 
it  the  conscious  transmission  of  feeling  to  a 
thoughtful  mind.  If,  for  example,  I  have  been 
struck  with  some  sudden  joy  or  stabbed  with 
sudden  pain,  and  an  exclamation  is  forced 
from  me  which  well  expresses  what  I  feel,  I  am 
not  thereby  proved  a  poet.  Something  more 
than  an  instinctive  cry  is  needed  for  that. 
There  must  be  a  purpose  of  communication, 
a  definite  plan  of  attack  on  another's  mind. 
Poetry  is  no  casual  and  spontaneous  affair.  It 
involves  criticism  and  control.  Wordsworth 
rightly  warns  us  that,  unlike  feeling  felt,  poetry 
is  feeling  recalled  in  moments  of  tranquillity. 
And  how  difficult  is  such  recall.  The  poet  is 
to  envisage  a  mood  already  past,  to  hold  it 
firm,  precise,  and  vivid,  and  then  devise  means 
for  conveying  it  entire  to  the  mind  of  another. 
Of  course  a  certain  cooperation  is  assumed. 


14    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  reader  must  be  capable  of  receiving.  He 
should  be  willing  to  drop  for  the  moment  his 
own  conditions  and  take  on  those  of  a  different 
person. 

To  do  its  work  then  poetry  requires  a  shaping 
intelligence  besides  its  emotional  matter.  Un- 
organized, the  mood  of  feeling  we  seek  to  con- 
vey has  little  appealing  power.  Originally 
bound  up  with  diverse  experiences,  together 
constituting  a  life,  when  detached  for  report  it 
is  fragmentary,  and  appearing  —  so  to  speak 
—  with  ragged  edges,  is  unimpressive.  A  land- 
scape casually  seen  is  far  from  being  a  work  of 
art.  It  contains  irrelevant  details,  while  much 
that  is  needed  for  understanding  is  absent.  An 
artistic  object  is  one  that  is  complete  within 
itself.  Unlike  nature,  it  shows  no  lack  or  super- 
fluity. Its  clear  beginning,  middle,  and  end 
give  it  coherent  form.  That  is  what  we  mean 
by  beauty.  Self-sufficient,  the  piece  stands  as 
if  it  had  always  been  so,  as  if  indeed  the  artist 
had  imparted  only  what  already  belonged  to 
it.  Accordingly  the  universal  demands  of  artis- 
tic form  may  be  summarized  thus ;  every  piece 
of  fine  art  must  possess  an  inner  structure 
adapted  to  its  theme;  must  contain  within  its 
own  compass   whatever  is  necessary  for  its 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

comprehension;  all  its  contents  must  har- 
moniously reinforce  the  dominant  note;  what- 
ever does  not,  through  being  superfluous,  acci- 
dental or  jarring,  must  be  eliminated;  and  the 
process  of  accomplishing  all  this  must  not 
attract  attention.  Good  art  attains  an  ease 
which  seems  inevitable. 

Yet  while  all  the  arts  require  form,  or  struc- 
tural unity,  each  has  its  own  technique,  or  set 
of  tested  agencies  for  conveying  emotion  of  its 
particular  kind.  Poetry  is  primarily  an  art  of 
sounds,  though  unlike  music,  its  nearest  of 
kin,  it  addresses  the  understanding  no  less  than 
the  ear.  In  great  poetry  sound  and  sense  so 
cooperate  that  a  good  ear  as  readily  recognizes 
an  excellent  poem  by  the  sequence  of  its  sylla- 
bles as  a  good  intellect  does  by  the  weight  and 
coherence  of  its  thought.  A  person  possessed 
by  a  passionate  and  significant  mood,  if  unable 
to  translate  it  into  beautiful  sound,  may  win 
attention  in  prose  but  lacks  something  of  being 
a  poet. 

Furthermore,  the  sound,  even  if  beautiful, 
must  be  suited  to  the  sense.  Rightly  we  speak 
of  a  tone  of  feeling;  for  certain  tones  convey 
certain  moods,  regardless  of  what  is  said.  Tones 
are  the  only   language  of  the  brutes.    Like 


16    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

them,  we  too  receive  emotional  impulse  from 
pitch,  stress,  duration,  swiftness,  repetition, 
pause;  only  that  possessing  articulation,  which 
brutes  do  not,  we  are  able  to  get  greater  pre- 
cision in  our  emotions  through  suggestive 
groupings  of  vowels  and  consonants.  These 
the  poet  harmoniously  adjusts.  Instinctively 
or  consciously  he  perceives  what  sounds  are 
no  mere  means  for  reporting  emotions.  They 
have  worth  of  their  own  and  are  of  the  very 
stock  and  substance  of  the  poetry. 

In  naming  just  now  the  possible  modulations 
of  sound,  I  included  pitch.  By  it  most  of  the 
effects  of  music  are  obtained.  In  poetry  it 
plays  but  a  small  part,  and  herein  lies  a  funda- 
mental difiference  of  the  two  arts.  Though  not 
altogether  absent  from  verse,  it  enters  into  it 
only  in  the  same  way  as  it  enters  prose,  as  a 
means  by  which  a  reader's  voice  avoids  monot- 
ony. But  verse  has  not,  like  music,  a  notation 
for  indicating  pitch.  Its  chief  reliance  is  on 
time  and  stress.  Southern  nations  attaching 
greater  consequence  to  time,  Northern  to 
stress.  So  extreme  is  the  insistence  on  stress  in 
English  that  the  length  or  shortness  of  sylla- 
bles is  largely  determined  by  their  degree  of 
emphasis.   Among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  it 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

was  not  so.  Accent  was  subordinated,  sylla- 
bles being  rated  by  the  time  spent  in  pro- 
nouncing them.  Since  these  ancient  writers 
were  the  first  to  analyze  poetry  and  to  fix  its 
nomenclature,  their  terms  have  descended  to 
us,  and  it  is  usual  to  call  a  weighty  syllable  long, 
a  light  one  short.  I  shall  not  quarrel  with  the 
usage,  as  many  poetic  reformers  do  to-day. 
Abrupt  breaks  with  the  past  do  not  attract  me. 
Greek  prosody  has  a  neatness  lacking  in  most 
of  the  systems  invented  since,  and  will  not 
expose  us  to  error  if  we  remember  that  an  un- 
accented syllable  usually  requires  less  time  in 
utterance  than  an  accented.  Until  English 
speakers  distinguish  more  sharply  between  the 
length  and  stress  of  sounds  we  shall  not  fall 
into  error  if  we  somewhat  broaden  the  mean- 
ing of  our  inherited  metrical  terms. 

A  few  of  these  terms  I  will  here  explain,  so 
that  hereafter  I  may  use  them  intelligibly  when 
pointing  out  the  metrical  habits  of  the  poets 
studied.  The  presumption  with  which  all 
poetry  starts  is  that  between  feeling  and 
rhythm  there  is  an  inherent  bond.  What  the 
nature  of  this  is  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that  feeling  does  not,  like  argument  or  narra- 
tive, advance  in  a  straight  line.    It  broods. 


18    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

recurs,  hovers  over.  The  emotion  is  returned 
to  again  and  again.  Repetition,  accordingly, 
is  a, mighty  engine  in  all  the  Fine  Arts.  In 
those  where  feeling  is  most  dominant,  as  in 
music  and  poetry,  it  is  perpetually  present. 
Yet  it  cannot  be  felt  till  linked  with  variety. 
The  sound  of  a  clock  soothes  us  best  when  we 
attribute  a  little  greater  loudness  to  its  alter- 
nate ticks.  We  differentiate  our  heart-beats. 
Whenever  successive  sounds  occur  we  construct 
a  rhythmic  unit,  which  we  then  take  pleasure 
in  repeating  indefinitely.  Music  has  such  a 
primary  unit,  the  bar,  where  the  duration  of 
sound  is  fixed,  but  the  pitch  and  continuity 
vary.  Repetitions  of  the  bar  give  a  larger  unit, 
the  phrase. 

In  close  analogy  to  the  musical  bar  stands 
the  primary  element  of  poetry,  the  foot,  com- 
posed of  several  syllables,  each  having  a  pre- 
scribed length  or  stress.  The  favorite  foot  in 
English  is  the  so-called  Iambus,  a  short  sylla- 
ble followed  by  a  long.  The  reverse  of  this,  a 
long  syllable  followed  by  a  short,  is  the  Tro- 
chee. Two  long  syllables,  the  Spondee,  though 
impossible  in  successive  feet,  may  sometimes  be 
introduced  singly  into  a  line  to  give  it  weight. 
Feet  of  three  syllables,  common  in  the  poetry  of 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

the  last  century  and  a  half,  have  always  entered 
into  folk-song,  but  our  early  poets  of  standing 
avoid  them.  They  are  of  two  sorts :  the  Dactyl, 
a  long  syllable  followed  by  two  short,  and  the 
Anapsest,  two  short  followed  by  a  long.  But 
enough  of  definition.  These  four  or  five  feet 
will  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose.  In  order  to 
fix  them  in  mind  I  give  a  familiar  example  of 
each: 

The  cur  |  few  tolls  |  the  knell  |  of  par  |  ting  day 

Tell  me  |  not  in  I  mournful  |  numbers 

I  am  mon|arch  of  all  |  I  survey 

Half  a  league,  |  half  a  league,  |  half  a  league  |  onward. 

How  many  feet  shall  a  line  contain.'^  As 
many  as  suit  the  phase  of  feeling  described. 
Fitting  the  measure  to  the  mood  requires 
poetic  skill.  Our  ancestors  in  their  rhymed 
chronicles  were  fond  of  fourteen  syllables, 
seven  iambics.  Tennyson  builds  "Locksley 
Hall"  with  eight  trochees.  But  lines  so  long 
are  too  much  for  a  single  breath.  In  reading, 
most  persons  will  divide  them,  making  two 
out  of  each.  Even  shorter  lines  become  easier 
for  the  breath  and  the  understanding  if  a  slight 
pause  is  introduced  near  the  middle,  called  a 
cut  or  ca\sura.  A  rhyming  word  at  the  end  of 
a  hne  will  emphasize  its  finished  unity  while 


20    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

marking  its  companionship  with  some  other 
line  or  lines.  Thus  arises  a  new  unit,  the 
stanza.  A  group  of  stanzas  of  similar  length, 
and  all  developing  a  single  theme,  will  then 
complete  the  metric  structure  of  the  poem. 

Among  the  minor  technicalities  alliteration 
and  assonance  may  be  mentioned,  the  former 
employed  to  give  greater  impressiveness  to 
certain  words  by  rhyming  their  initial  conso- 
nants; the  latter,  where  vowels  of  a  like  kind 
distribute  a  common  tone  of  feeling  through- 
out an  entire  passage.  But  these  are  dangerous 
expedients.  If  noticed,  they  defeat  their  end 
by  withdrawing  attention  from  the  feeling  and 
fixing  it  on  trivial  details.  When  Tennyson 
tells  us  how  in  a  certain  courtyard 

"The  golden  gorge  of  dragons  spouted  forth 
A  flood  of  fountain  foam," 

we  are  likely  to  forget  the  fountain  in  our  won- 
derment at  the  feat  of  Tennyson.  Delicacy, 
too,  is  needed  in  stopping  a  line  at  its  end  or 
sending  it  on  to  find  its  pause  somewhere  in 
the  following  line.  Different  effects  accompany 
each,  and  either  may  be  excessive. 

In  this  detailed  anatomy  of  verse  —  stress, 
foot,  line,  stanza,  caesura,  end-stopping,  vowel- 
color,    alliteration  —  I  would  not  be  under- 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

stood  as  accounting  for  the  charm  of  poetry. 
Much  of  that  must  always,  outside  these  tech- 
nicahties,  remain  mysterious,  a  result  of  the 
untraceable  genius  of  the  individual  poet.  We 
shall  enjoy  him  more  if  we  know  what  his  poetic 
resources  are  and  something  about  his  under- 
lying processes.  But  these  should  not  be  taken 
as  fixed  rules,  to  be  universally  observed.  The 
Fine  Arts  lose  their  meaning  when  they  cease 
to  be  free.  Their  laws  are  not  made  to  be  kept, 
but  to  be  deviated  from,  to  be  circled  around. 
If,  for  example,  a  poet  has  no  central  type  of 
verse  in  mind,  art  ceases  and  his  poem  sprawls. 
WTiile  if  his  conformity  to  type  is  too  exact,  we 
remain  unmoved,  as  before  any  other  piece  of 
mechanism.  No  Indian  weaver  begins  his  rug 
without  having  in  mind  an  orderly  pattern  for 
its  little  figures;  but  never  are  those  figures  re- 
peated precisely.  Blank  verse  follows  a  com- 
mon type  in  Wordsworth  and  Browning,  but 
the  product  is  as  different  as  the  two  men. 
Counting  the  fingers  will  never  show  how  a  fine 
poem  is  built.  Beauty  is  to  be  had  only  when 
an  orderly  form  bears  the  modifying  impress 
of  a  living  personality. 

Having  thus  said  the  little  that  is  possible 
about  the  substance,  form,  and  technique  of 


22    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

poetry,  it  only  remains  to  indicate  its  impor- 
tance. For  the  writer  its  importance  is  obvious. 
Expression  eases  inner  tension.  A  painful  feel- 
ing loses  something  of  its  pain  when  it  ceases 
to  be  exclusively  one's  own,  receives  outward 
form,  and  becomes  a  thing  of  beauty;  while  a 
joyful  experience  clamors  for  utterance  and 
when  spoken  seems  doubly  secure.  We  all  find 
pleasure  in  expressing  ourselves,  and  that  high- 
est form  of  expression  which  leaves  behind  it  a 
beautiful,  lasting  and  shareable  result  brings 
dignity  to  him  who  employs  it.  But  where  lies 
the  value  to  the  community  of  such  transmis- 
sion of  feeling  to  a  thoughtful  reader?  What 
contribution  can  poetry  make  toward  invigor- 
ating human  life? 

The  first  and  most  considerable  comes  from 
its  work  in  training  the  imagination.  Poetry 
offers  us  our  best  opportunity  for  entering  into 
experiences  not  our  own.  It  thus  corrects  our 
tendency  to  become  shut  up  within  our  sepa- 
rate selves.  People  differ  widely  in  understand- 
ing the  life  of  others.  Some,  of  imagination  all 
compact,  know  instinctively  the  moods  of 
those  whom  they  approach.  Others  seem  in- 
capable of  comprehending  any  other  minds 
than  their  own.   And  how  petty,  tactless,  iso- 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

lated,  and  poverty-stricken  are  such  lives!  We 
are  social  beings.  Each  life  naturally  inter- 
locked with  that  of  otliers,  suffers  depression 
when  detached.  Swift  mutual  understanding 
brings  pleasure  and  eflSciency.  Because  poetry 
can  train  us  in  a  habit  of  mind  so  generous,  it 
has  high  social  value. 

Yet  in  tliis  matter  there  is  a  marked  con- 
trast between  the  use  of  poetry  by  the  young 
and  the  mature.  Youth  has  its  private  moods, 
states  of  feeling  which  it  does  not  understand 
and  of  which  it  is  half  ashamed.  Then,  to  its 
surprise  and  delight,  it  finds  that  the  poets 
have  had  the  same  experiences.  In  them,  the 
things  at  which  the  youth  or  maiden  blushed 
appear  glorious.  Young  people  thus  gain  im- 
portance in  their  own  eyes,  poetry  expressing 
them  better  than  they  can  express  themselves. 
This  I  call  the  sentimental  use  of  poetry,  and 
it  is  something  not  altogether  to  be  despised. 
For  a  time  it  assists  growth.  Looking  into  the 
mirror  of  humanity,  one  sees  one's  own  face 
there  and  knows  himself  a  person  of  worth. 
But  such  sentimentality  cannot  long  continue. 
It  is  childish  and  enfeebling,  a  mere  means  oi 
shutting  ourselves  more  securely  within  our 
own  little  cabin.  Before  they  are  twenty,  most 


24    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

sensible  men  discard  poetry  altogether,  while  a 
few  devote  themselves  to  it  with  a  new  serious- 
ness, having  discovered  its  imaginative  value. 
Like  all  fine  art,  it  then  becomes  a  means  of 
escape  from  one's  own  limitations.  Through  it 
we  are  able  to  comprehend  subtly  moods  that 
never  were  ours  and  so  to  live  many  lives  in- 
stead of  our  little  one.  When  I  travel,  I  do  not 
seek  the  places  that  are  like  my  home.  I  go 
abroad  for  broadening,  and  consequently  turn 
to  scenes  with  a  character  of  their  own,  scenes 
strange  and  refreshing.  Not  that  I  prefer  them 
to  mine.  On  the  contrary,  I  usually  return  to 
my  habitual  surroundings  with  new  respect  and 
a  clearer  understanding.  But  by  the  study  of 
human  differences  I  have  gained  flexibility,  dis- 
cernment, and  sympathy.  Now,  poetry,  when 
rightly  taken,  is  a  species  of  fireside  travel. 
It  can  remove  us  from  the  habitual  round 
more  swiftly  than  train  or  steamer.  The  greater 
the  poet,  too,  the  better  will  he  do  this,  bring- 
ing as  he  does  a  wealth  of  experience.  Under 
his  discipline,  how  much  better  lawyer  I  be- 
come, how  much  better  physician,  how  much 
better  merchant,  how  much  better  anything, 
because  I  have  broken  the  bondage  that  binds 
us  all  —  the  bondage  to  self.   Taken  imagina- 


INTRODUCTORY  25 

tively,  poetry  is  a  great  liberator.  Those 
who  go  through  life  without  its  aid,  repelled 
by  its  sentimental  use,  work  with  stunted 
powers. 

Liberating  us  from  ourselves  then,  poetry 
becomes  also  our  best  means  of  acquaintance 
with  the  spiritual  ideals  of  our  race.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter  I  said  that  poetry 
records  feelings  rather  than  facts  or  ideals. 
But  the  saying  may  easily  be  misunderstood. 
After  all,  in  order  to  feel  one  must  feel  about 
something.  One  does  not  feel  in  vacuo.  Poetry 
reflects  what  has  moved  men  most.  Feeling, 
willing,  and  knowing  are  not  detachable  func- 
tions. In  some  degree  all  enter  into  every  men- 
tal state.  We  may  approach  experience  as  the 
observer  does,  to  note  its  facts;  as  the  moralist 
does,  to  urge  the  best  treatment  of  the  facts; 
or  as  the  poet  does,  to  picture  how  his  particu- 
lar mind  is  affected  by  those  facts.  These  are 
merely  three  modes  of  dealing  with  the  same 
matter.  Each  emphasizes  a  single  aspect  of 
life,  and  to  doing  its  own  work  each  should  be 
true.  Poetry  should  not  turn  aside  from  its 
individual  experience  in  order  to  increase  know- 
ledge or  to  stimulate  socially  useful  acts.  Such 
alien  aims  may  dull  the  picture.   But  feeUngs 


26    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  are  large  and  significant  spring  from  large 
and  significant  things.  In  poetry  we  read  what 
has  impressed  men  as  most  significant.  Here 
as  in  a  gallery  we  see  the  multifold  personal 
reactions  of  joy,  sorrow,  aspiration,  disappoint- 
ment, revolt,  triumph,  religion,  which  contact 
with  this  puzzling  world  of  nature  and  man 
induces.  The  history  of  poetry  is  a  history  of 
the  ideals  which  men  have  counted  valuable, 
a  truthful  history,  too,  because  it  shows  these 
ideals  not  as  offered  to  other  persons,  but  as 
affecting  the  mind  of  the  poet  himself.  A  book 
like  the  present,  which  exhibits  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  a  nation's  mind  through  succes- 
sive conceptions  of  poetry,  is  a  chapter  in  the 
history  of  that  nation's  civilization. 

When  prosaic  Audrey  asks  Touchstone  if 
poetry  is  a  true  thing,  we  may  confidently 
answer  that  after  its  kind  it  is.  It  brings  us 
face  to  face  with  reality.  More  than  any  other 
species  of  writing  it  sets  down  how  a  given 
individual  has  been  affected  by  nature,  regard- 
less of  whatever  may  have  come  to  some  one 
else.  On  faithfulness  in  this  psychologic  truth 
its  success  is  staked.  For  the  historic  truth  of 
how  things  happened,  or  even  for  scientific 
truths,  seen  in  laws  and  the  general  principles 


INTRODUCTORY  27 

sought  by  scholars,  it  cares  Httle.  Only  sup- 
posing things  did  happen  so  and  so,  according 
to  such  and  such  laws,  there  must  be  no  error 
in  stating  the  feelings  experienced.  I  have 
sometimes  thought  the  two  kinds  of  truth 
might  be  illustrated  by  two  consecutive  stanzas 
of  "The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes."  In  the  first  Keats 
tells  how  the  moon,  shining  through  the  stained 
window  of  Madeline's  chamber,  "threw  warm 
gules  on  Madeline's  fair  breast."  It  is  said 
that  moonlight  will  not  transmit  colors.  I 
have  never  inquired  into  the  fact.  It  does 
not  affect  the  poetry.  But  when  in  the  next 
stanza  it  is  narrated  how  in  the  maiden's 
undressing 

"Of  all  her  wreathed  pearls  her  hair  she  frees. 
Unclasps  her  warmed  jewels  one  by  one. 
Loosens  her  fragrant  bodice;  by  degrees 
Her  rich  attire  creeps  rustling  to  her  knees; 
Half  hidden  like  a  mermaid  in  sea-weed 
Pensive  awhile  she  dreams  awake," 

I  suspect  a  psychologic,  that  is,  a  poetic,  error. 
Keats  has  previously  described  the  room  as 
intensely  cold.  Did  he  keep  that  feeling  in 
mind  when  he  allowed  Madeline  to  linger 
naked,  meditating  over  her  fantastic  dream? 
Human  nature  does  not  work  in  that  way. 


28    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Great  poet  that  Keats  is,  he  seldom  slips.  In 
his  "Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci"  he  tells  how  he 
*'met  a  lady  in  the  meads."  Perhaps  he  did, 
perhaps  not.  No  matter.  But  of  what  terrible 
veracity  is  his  picture  of  blind  longing,  mad 
pursuit,  empty  attainment,  and  a  disappoint- 
ment which  strips  the  world  of  beauty  I  Here 
poetry  *'is  a  true  thing."  Just  so  Shelley's 
"Sky-Lark"  sings  more  truthfully  than  did 
ever  feathered  bird. 

And  because  of  this  psychological  veracity 
poetry  is  necessary  for  us  all.  It  repairs  the 
wastes  of  time.  Custom  lays  on  most  of  us  a 
heavy  hand,  removing  the  background  of  real- 
ity from  our  words  and  thoughts  and  leaving 
them  as  mere  signs  for  the  guidance  of  conduct. 
We  get  used  to  things,  and  how  dull  things 
then  become  I  Glibly  we  speak  of  the  dazzling 
beauty  of  a  flower;  but  how  much  do  we  ever 
have  in  mind  of  what  Herbert  saw  when  he 
wrote, 

"O  rose,  whose  hue  angrie  and  brave 
Bids  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye"? 

The  genuine  poet  never  grows  used  to  any- 
thing. He  starts  with  an  individual  thrilling 
experience  and  restores  for  his  readers  the  fresh- 
ness of  their  early  days.    Childhood's  wonder- 


INTRODUCTORY  29 

ment  returns,  and  over  the  marvels  all  around 
us  we  glow  anew.  Rightly  are  poets  called 
seers.  He  who  rejects  their  illuminating  aid 
moves  stupidly  through  life  with  half-closed 
eyes. 


n 

Geoffrey  Chaucer 


n 

GEOFFREY  CHAUCER 

It  might  well  seem  presumptuous  for  a  person 
with  any  pretensions  to  scholarship  to  under- 
take to  set  forth  in  a  single  brief  chapter  one  of 
the  most  voluminous  poets  of  our  language. 
In  Skeat's  edition  Chaucer's  works  fill  nearly 
two  thousand  large  octavo  pages.  But  I  make 
no  pretension  to  literary  scholarship  and  in 
this  field  am  but  an  amateur.  To  be  a  scholar 
in  Chaucer  demands  the  devotion  of  half  a  life- 
time, so  many  questions  relating  to  him  are 
still  in  controversy.  What  ones  among  the 
many  pieces  bearing  his  name  were  written  by 
him?  What  ones  merely  composed  under  his 
influence?  From  what  sources  does  he  derive 
his  material?  For  this  creative  genius,  like 
Shakspere,  seldom  invents  what  he  can  bor- 
row. Then  too  what  are  the  precise  facts  of 
his  life?  Plentiful  rumors  about  him  have 
floated  down  from  antiquity;  but  are  these 
rumors  trustworthy?  What  evidence  is  there 
for  them,  and  do  they  harmonize  with  other 
known  facts?    It  is  a  vast  affair,  becoming 


34    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

acquainted  with  Chaucer.  But  shall  we  delay 
our  enjoyment  till  all  these  puzzling  questions 
are  settled?  If  we  had  picked  a  volume  of 
Chaucer  out  of  an  ash  barrel,  and  never  had 
heard  his  name,  should  we  not  see  at  once  the 
quality  of  the  writing  and  know  that  its  author 
must  have  had  a  prodigious  influence  over 
his  contemporaries  and  successors?  It  is  this 
aesthetic  interest  in  Chaucer  —  an  interest 
open  even  to  one  who  lacks  special  historic 
training  —  which  I  would  emphasize.  I  wish 
my  readers  to  look  upon  his  work  as  the  best 
example  we  have  of  an  important  type  of 
poetry,  one  of  the  earliest  types  and  he  the  first 
to  present  it  adequately.  All  else  in  the  great 
world  of  Chaucer  I  pass  by.  Whatever  facts 
about  him  I  borrow  from  the  accredited  author- 
ities will  have  sole  reference  to  this  aim.  As  an 
account  of  Chaucer  this  chapter  will  be  meagre 
indeed.  For  illustrating  a  certain  formative 
type  of  delightful  poetry,  it  may  be  sufiicient. 
But  the  word  "type"  is  obscure,  almost 
mysterious.  It  needs  definition.  If  we  are  to 
find  "formative  types"  in  English  poetry,  we 
should  know  precisely  what  to  look  for.  Here 
then,  in  connection  with  our  first  poet  I  will 
try  to  make  the  matter  plain.    In  my  first 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  35 

chapter  I  pointed  out  that  poetry  does  not 
primarily  seek  to  inform :  it  is  not  a  statement 
of  facts  or  of  ethical  precepts.  It  aims  at  the 
conscious  transference  of  a  mood.  Accordingly, 
in  estimating  the  beauty  of  a  poem  our  chief 
question  is  how  completely  is  that  mood  pre- 
sented.'^ Is  it  vivid,  rounded,  fully  organized? 
Has  everything  been  stated  which  belongs  to 
it,  which  would  enable  it  to  affect  us  as  it 
affected  the  poet  himself?  And  then,  of  course, 
the  universal  demand  of  art — is  it  severe; 
has  everything  been  cut  away  which  could  pos- 
sibly be  spared? 

The  significance  of  a  mood,  however,  varies 
according  as  it  is  a  profound  and  permanent 
or  a  transient  one.  We  all  have  our  temporary 
moods,  and  not  infrequently  pungent  ones. 
Something  makes  us  taste  of  life  more  deeply 
than  is  our  wont,  and  our  dull  tongues  are 
quickened.  We  try  to  set  forth  our  emotion 
for  others  to  share.  Under  an  urgent  experience 
an  ordinary  man  may  become  temporarily  a 
poet.  The  very  forms  of  verse  bring  a  relief 
to  his  mood.  Such  persons  who  rise  to  the 
height  of  a  single  poem,  or  a  few  poems,  we 
may  call  i)oetic  writers,  in  contrast  to  the  true 
poets.  And  of  course  many  a  one  sinks  below 


36    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

this  level.  He  has  some  vague  feeling  which  he 
imperfectly  comprehends  and  can  only  imper- 
fectly state;  yet  having  a  certain  knack  of  verse 
he  writes  with  neatness  and  we  loosely  speak  of 
what  he  produces  as  "poetry."  How  can  we 
distinguish  this  from  the  true  stuff?  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  writer  I  have  called  poetry 
the  conscious  transference  of  a  mood.  From 
that  of  the  reader  it  is  a  fragment  of  reality 
seen  through  a  temperament.  The  poetic  writer 
has  no  temperament;  the  poet  has. 

To  get  an  understanding  of  what  we  mean 
by  a  temperament  we  had  better  go  quite  out- 
side the  realm  of  poetry  and  examine  certain 
experiences  of  common  life.  Suppose  on  a 
street-corner  of  a  busy  city  a  group  of  men 
stand  watching  the  moving  crowd  in  the  street. 
Their  eyes  turned  in  the  same  direction,  do 
they  all  see  the  same  things?  The  majority  of 
them  perhaps  do.  If  we  could  penetrate  their 
inner  minds  we  should  probably  find  little 
difference  in  the  perceptions  of  four  fifths  of 
the  onlookers.  Their  observation  is  superficial. 
What  is  seen  stirs  no  one  of  them  deeply.  Each 
casts  a  glance,  sees  a  moving  object,  recognizes 
it  as  a  human  being,  and  that  is  about  all.  But 
in  the  group  are  three  persons  of  a  different 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  S7 

type.  One  is  an  artist  who,  as  he  gazes  on 
the  swaying  street,  is  struck  with  the  multi- 
tude of  moving  arms  and  legs,  with  great  dark 
spots  of  body,  with  certain  illuminated  masses 
here  balancing  other  illuminated  masses  there. 
Among  the  swift  motions  certain  show  a  har- 
monious rhythm,  but  there  are  maladjust- 
ments too,  and  he  is  studying  how  these  might 
be  pulled  together  to  form  an  integral  whole. 
That  is  what  the  artist  sees.  At  his  elbow 
stands  a  statesman,  concerned  over  the  well- 
being  of  his  townsmen.  He  has  before  him 
what  we  are  accustomed  to  call  the  same  crowd 
as  the  artist,  but  yet  how  different!  For  as  he 
turns  his  face  upon  that  struggling  crowd  he  is 
asking  how  many  of  these  people  are  well-to-do, 
how  many  in  poverty,  what  proportion  do  the 
criminally  inclined  bear  to  the  good  citizens, 
have  any  sunk  so  low  in  the  social  scale  that 
there  is  no  more  hope  for  them  —  such  are  the 
statesman's  questions.  And  since  such  ques- 
tions fill  his  mind,  such  are  his  observations.  If 
his  artist  neighbor  should  say  to  him,  "Did  you 
see  that  splendid  splash  of  color  up  there  on 
the  left?"  would  he  not  answer,  "No,  I  only 
saw  a  wretchedly  ragged  woman,  hiding  her 
head  in  her  shawl."    This  the  artist  had  not 


X 


392ti8 


38    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

seen,  for  he  had  been  looking  for  something 
else.  But  near  these' two  moves  a  man  of  God. 
Looking  into  the  wan  faces,  he  asks  himself  how 
many  are  lovers  of  the  ways  of  righteousness, 
how  many  have  grown  careless  and  fallen  into 
vice,  how  many  have  lost  their  self-respect  and 
can  no  longer  think  of  duty  as  a  friend?  Though 
the  statesman  and  he  are  scanning  the  same 
faces,  each  receives  a  different  shade  of  im- 
pression. 

And  just  these  special  prepossessions  of  sight 
will  be  carried  away  when  the  three  friends 
move  from  the  sidewalk  and  go  up  into  the  less 
frequented  parts  of  the  town.  Whatever  they 
see  will  come  to  them  colored  by  their  tempera- 
ment, that  is,  their  habitual  mode  of  regard. 
These  men  have  encompassed  themselves  with 
limitations  of  vision  which,  while  allowing 
much  that  is  of  value  to  escape,  enable  them 
to  perceive  more  fully  the  value  of  what  they 
do  see.  Each  of  these  temperamental  persons 
is  so  inwardly  fashioned  that  only  certain  sides 
of  the  world  can  come  at  him.  And  with  this 
state  of  things  each  is  on  the  whole  content. 
His  work  is  thus  defined.  He  knows  what  he  is 
called  to  do.  And  so  far  from  despising  such  a 
one,  we  should  honor  him  for  accepting  so  lim- 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  89 

ited  a  section  of  life.  Only  so  can  he  acquire 
an  aptitude  of  sight  and  judgment,  and  become 
able  to  disclose  the  deeper  things  of  the  world 
to  his  fellows. 

Now,  what,  is  obvious  here  in  common  life  is 
no  less  true  in  poetry.  The  great  poets  are 
those  who  have  a  temperament,  a  permanent 
attitude  of  mind,  who  have  habituated  them- 
selves to  approach  all  things  on  certain  single 
sides  and  are  contented  with  their  limitations. 
Their  moods  are  not  thin  and  shifting.  A  tem- 
peramental type  stamps  all  their  work.  How 
idle  then  for  us  when  we  would  read  poetry  to 
bring  with  us  a  standard  of  what  all  poets 
should  be;  and  because  on  opening  a  volume 
we  do  not  find  this  there,  to  close  it  again 
thinking  it  has  no  value  for  us,  we  don't  like 
it!  "Like"  or  "don't  like,"  that  is  the  test 
ordinarily  applied;  and  nothing  more  surely 
hinders  growth.  We  bring  our  prepossessions, 
our  little  fragmentary  temperaments  and  ex- 
pect the  great  man  to  have  no  other.  We  go 
to  the  poets  with  the  demand  that  they  reflect 
ourselves.  If  they  do,  we  give  them  the  supreme 
honor  of  liking  them ;  if  they  do  not,  we  decline 
the  labor  of  understanding.  Such  is  the  senti- 
mental way  of  reading  poetry,  and  it  should  bp 


40    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

dropped  in  our  teens  if  we  would  not  grow  up 
weaklings. 

But  if  we  desire  to  enlarge  our  imagination 
and  increase  the  scope  of  our  life,  we  cannot 
do  better  than  to  turn  to  the  great  poets  pre- 
cisely because  they  are  of  a  different  type  from 
ourselves.  Let  them  take  us  in  charge  and  in- 
struct us  how  the  world  looks  from  their  point 
of  view.  It  is  the  poet's  work  to  emancipate 
us  from  ourselves.  Other  men  are  able  to  do 
it  but  partially.  The  poets  do  it  veraciously. 
For  the  moment  they  can  make  their  life  ours, 
if  we  will  put  ourselves  under  their  guidance 
and  not  insist  on  all  doing  the  same  thing. 

In  some  such  way  English  poetry  will  be 
studied  in  this  book.  Regarding  each  of  these 
poets  as  but  a  medium  for  bringing  about  the 
enlargement  of  the  English  mind,  I  give  no 
detailed  account  of  a  poet's  life  and  writings.  I 
seek  to  furnish  insigiit,  not  information.  Such 
facts  as  can  be  had  from  a  biographical  dic- 
tionary I  omit,  or  use  only  so  far  as  they  help 
to  determine  the  type  of  the  poet.  I  want  to 
lay  bare  his  psychology  and  to  show  how  natu- 
rally connected  with  this  are  the  peculiarities 
of  his  writings.  What  is  his  attitude  of  mind.'' 
What  aspects  of  the  world  is  he  interested  in 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  41 

setting  forth?  That  is  all.  If  I  can  conduct  my 
readers  to  the  point  of  view  from  which  they 
can  comprehend  what  each  poet  has  to  say,  I 
shall  count  it  of  little  consequence  that  they 
do  not  like  what  he  says.  Has  he  said  it  well, 
I  ask,  and  felt  it  deeply?  If  so,  let  us  be  grate- 
ful. Every  phase  of  human  nature,  truly  dis- 
played, has  value  and  enriches  us  all.  Let  us 
then  be  flexible-minded  and,  putting  ourselves 
successively  in  charge  of  these  men,  let  us  en- 
deavor to  see  the  world  as  each  of  them  saw  it. 
But  while  varieties  of  individual  tempera- 
ment create  a  multitude  of  interesting  types, 
these  are  not  all  of  equal  consequence.  The 
differences  among  them  are  often  small.  But 
from  time  to  time,  and  usually  when  old  ways 
of  poetizing  are  outworn,  some  genius  appears 
whose  temperament  is  of  so  divergent,  fresh 
and  pronounced  a  type  that  it  becomes  forma- 
tive over  his  successors.  Some  new  phase  of 
human  experience,  or  at  least  a  new  mode  of 
handling  it,  is  disclosed  by  him,  and  those  who 
come  after  are  enabled  to  see  and  do  what 
without  him  they  could  not  have  seen  and  done. 
It  is  these  truly  formative  types  which  interest 
me.  A  small  number  of  those  which  have  been 
most  influential  I  here  examine. 


42    FORMATR^  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

When  English  poetry  first  sets  out  —  I  do 
not  meddle  with  the  Saxon  and  Norman  forms 
which  preceded  —  but  when  that  which  may 
fairly  be  called  English  poetry  first  sets  out, 
we  meet  a  mighty  figure,  Geoffrey  Chaucer, 
1340-1400  —  easy  dates  to  remember.  His 
work  is  in  an  elementary  type  of  poetry,  but 
one  which  needed  to  be  developed  before  others 
could  arise  at  all.  That  type,  we  must  keep 
steadily  in  mind  if  we  would  enjoy  him,  for 
from  it  most  of  his  excellence  is  derived.  It  is 
narrative  poetry,  vivid  description,  rooted  in 
the  observation  of  facts.  Chaucer  looks  out 
upon  the  world,  enjoys  it,  and  attempts  to 
reproduce  it  for  our  pleasure.  His  poetry  re- 
flects hearty  content  with  the  world  as  it 
stands.  Such  mere  reproduction  of  welcomed 
experience  must  underlie  all  other  varieties  of 
verse.  Of  it  Chaucer  is  the  acknowledged 
master. 

The  closer  we  come  to  Chaucer,  the  more 
remarkable  it  seems  that  he  was  able  to  do 
work  of  this  naturalistic  sort.  The  conven- 
tional obstacles  which  he  inherited  were  enor- 
mous. Under  the  magnitude  of  them  a  lesser 
genius  would  have  succumbed.  For  a  vast 
store  of  theology  was  handed  over  to  him  which 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  43 

had  been  accumulated  reverently  through  cen- 
turies, though  only  half  understood  either  by 
those  who  read  or  wrote  it.  An  ecclesiasticism 
too  protected  by  the  State,  sternly  prescribed 
what  men  should  believe  and  read,  repressing 
individual  inquiry.  At  this  time  it  was  ren- 
dered freshly  suspicious  by  Wiclif  and  his  fol- 
lowers. Verbose  moralizing  was  also  in  fashion, 
platitudes  were  accepted  as  profundities,  and 
to  their  length,  tedium,  and  emptiness,  no  one 
seems  to  have  objected.  Everybody  too  de- 
lighted in  fantastic  allegory,  the  very  opposite 
of  observational  truth.  And  if  we  are  to  com- 
plete the  catalogue  of  Chaucer's  adverse  condi- 
tions, we  must  mention  the  fondness  of  his  age 
for  the  inferior  writers  of  antiquity  and  for 
those  extravagant  legends  of  chivalry  where 
mere  events  and  coincidences  are  the  main 
thing  and  little  attention  is  given  to  human 
character. 

Such  was  Chaucer's  burdensome  inheritance. 
He  did  not  reject  it.  The  wise  man  counts  pre- 
cious the  stock  the  past  brings  him,  enters  into 
it  heartily,  but  ever  adds  to  and  modifies  it. 
It  is  a  good  saying  that  a  man  or  nation  that 
has  no  past  is  not  likely  to  have  a  future.  He 
who  rebels  against  what  he  receives  is  apt  to  be 


44    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

left  meagre.  But  what  is  received  must  not  be 
allowed  to  keep  its  outgrown  character.  The 
poet,  at  least,  puts  his  own  impress  on  all  that 
comes  his  way.  How  just  is  Bacon's  statement 
that  the  beauty  of  excellent  art  consists  in  the 
homo  additus  natnrcBi  the  stamp  of  the  human 
being  set  on  the  world  around!  And  the  re- 
mark is  no  less  true  of  the  world  of  inner  experi- 
ence, which  tradition  brings,  than  of  the  physi- 
cal world  reported  by  our  senses.  The  poet 
accepts  them  both,  but  passes  them  through 
his  special  temperament. 

At  least  so  Chaucer  did.  All  the  rubbish  of 
the  past  which  I  have  assembled  in  my  previous 
paragraph  Chaucer  uses  about  as  abundantly 
as  do  his  contemporaries.  Obvious  moralizing 
does  not  disturb  him.  Sonorous  divinity,  fre- 
quent quotation,  magical  agencies,  strained 
allegory,  belief  in  absurd  legends  —  yes,  even 
the  dream  as  the  framework  of  a  tale  —  all  the 
literary  furniture  of  his  time  he  cheerfully 
adopts.  His  stories  are  often  not  his  own,  but 
have  been  already  told  by  Latin,  Italian,  or 
French  writers,  he  recasting  them  according 
to  his  fancy.  He  often  strikes  one  as  too  mod- 
est, over  docile,  too  much  inclined  to  look  up 
to  those  who  are  beneath  him.  Yet  he  borrows 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  45 

nothing  that  he  does  not  transform.  Dead 
matter  of  the  past  he  fills  with  living  character. 
Vivid  individual  portraiture  which  hitherto 
had  hardly  been  attempted  in  English  litera- 
ture, is  Chaucer's  passion.  All  his  improbable 
stories,  stuffed  with  theologic,  moral  and  physi- 
cal lore  are  prized  by  him  as  material  for  the 
setting  of  endless  varieties  of  mankind.  Just 
as  it  exists,  he  rejoices  in  humanity,  in  its 
squalor,  splendor,  misfortune,  tragedy.  All 
gives  him  what  he  wants,  the  opportunity  to 
depict.  No  doubt  unworthy  people  are  often 
his  subjects,  coarse  and  degraded  people.  A 
coarse  man  too  is  sure  to  think  coarse  thoughts 
and  use  coarse  words.  He  who  depicts  him 
accurately  must  not  be  squeamish  over  foul- 
ness. Chaucer  is  not.  In  its  indication  of  char- 
acter he  even  takes  a  hearty  pleasure.  On  the 
other  hand  Chaucer's  world  abounds  in  high- 
bred knights,  priests,  scholars,  lawyers,  admin- 
istrators, with  attractive,  refined  and  dutiful 
women  not  a  few,  all  trained  from  youth  to 
noble  thought  and  gentle  manners;  and  to 
these  again  Chaucer  does  imaginative  justice. 
His  aim  everywhere  is  that  announced  by 
Shakspere,  "to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature." 
If  Chaucer  can  only  get  tlie  moving  world  — 


46    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

the  human  world  as  he  sees  it  in  rich  variety 
around  him,  —  if  he  can  get  this  actual  world 
transferred  to  his  pages,  and  make  us  as  inter- 
ested as  himself  in  the  queer  actions,  the  ab- 
surdities, the  glories,  the  degradations  even,  of 
his  fellow  men  he  will  be  content.  His  dra- 
matic power  is  extreme.  He  suits  each  tale  to 
the  character  of  him  who  tells  it. 

But  if  the  desire  to  keep  close  to  reality  is 
the  distinctive  mark  of  Chaucer,  can  we  give 
his  writings  the  name  of  poetry?  By  doing  so 
shall  we  not  come  into  conflict  with  the  doc- 
trine of  our  first  chapter?  There  it  appeared 
that  the  antithesis  of  poetry  was  not  prose, 
but  fact.  Poetry,  being  the  conscious  trans- 
mission of  emotion  into  responsive  minds,  may 
use  as  its  medium  verse  or  prose,  if  only  what  it 
transmits  is  something  else  than  fact.  Accord- 
ingly we  have  defined  poetry  as  a  fragment  of 
reality  seen  through  a  temperament,  and  have 
regarded  the  temperament  as  the  more  im- 
portant part  of  the  mixture.  Now  if  we 
merely  hold  a  mirror  up  to  nature  and  content 
ourselves  with  what  is  reflected  there,  we  leave 
out  exactly  that  which  is  precious.  Many 
therefore  deny  the  name  of  poetry  to  narra- 
tive verse,  and  with  much  plausibility.    Verse 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  47 

that  furnishes  information  about  men  and 
things,  however  subtle  that  information  may 
be  and  conveyed  in  however  dehcate  phrases, 
is  after  all  only  exquisite  prose.  The  name  of 
poetry  should  be  reserved  for  that  which  con- 
veys emotion,  and  this  descriptive  verse  need 
not  do. 

With  such  views  I  largely  agree  and  hold 
that  so  far  as  any  verse  fixes  attention  on  a 
mere  sequence  of  happenings,  its  poetry  re- 
cedes. But  I  also  feel  that  such  opinions  should 
in  no  way  lessen  our  admiration  of  Chaucer. 
He  interests  us  not  primarily  by  the  facts  he 
presents,  but  by  his  emotional  presentation. 
His  is  a  marvelous  temperament.  That  multi- 
tude of  curiously  diversified  persons  to  whom 
he  introduces  us  is  seen  through  an  exceptional 
reflecting  medium.  Nowhere  else  is  such  bon- 
homie to  be  found,  such  candor,  such  indispo- 
sition to  judge  —  at  least  to  judge  harshly  — 
such  modesty,  such  incessant  playfulness,  such 
power  of  pathos  and  of  memorable  utterance. 
It  is  because  this  golden  glow  is  over  all  his 
pages  that  we  turn  to  them  as  artistry.  Most 
of  the  information  recorded  there  is  rubbish 
and  negligible.  But  the  poetry  is  abundant 
and  precious. 


48    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  few  events  of  his  life  that  are  surely 
known  show  him  to  have  been  fortunately 
trained  for  the  office  of  human  interpreter.  No 
doubt  another  man  might  pass  through  his 
experiences  and  bring  out  a  different  result. 
We  cannot  judge  circumstances  without  refer- 
ence to  the  character  they  affect.  Perhaps 
a  character  like  Chaucer's  would  have  turned 
the  most  unpromising  to  profit.  But  certainly 
there  are  few  men  who  through  a  long  career 
can  be  counted  so  continuously  fortunate. 

Fortune  favored  him  at  the  start,  making 
him  a  member  of  no  single  class.  He  was  not 
of  noble  birth  and  so  cut  off  from  knowledge 
of  the  common  lot;  not  even  a  university  man, 
disciplined  into  undue  reverence  for  the  past. 
He  came  out  of  the  ranks  of  trade.  Indeed  his 
father  followed  a  trade  most  suitable  for  the 
parent  of  so  genial  a  gentleman.  His  father 
was  a  wine  merchant  in  good  circumstances, 
who  probably  supplied  wines  to  the  court. 
Nothing  is  known  of  his  son's  youth  till  in  1357 
we  find  him  mentioned  as  being  measured  for 
a  suit  of  livery  in  the  train  of  the  wife  of  the 
Duke  of  Clarence,  one  of  the  King's  sons.  That 
is,  he  now  crosses  the  border  line,  leaves  the 
men  of  commerce,  and  joins  the  noble  class. 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  49 

with  which  his  hfe  is  henceforth  allied.  Chaucer 
is  an  excellent  climber.  He  never  goes  back- 
ward in  the  social  scale.  He  loves  all  that  is 
rich  and  splendid  and  is  skilful  in  appropriat- 
ing a  good  shd,re  to  himself.  By  the  time  he  is 
a  man,  therefore,  Chaucer  is  acquainted  both 
with  court  and  commonalty. 

Critics  divide  his  life  into  four  periods;  the 
first,  the  period  of  his  youth,  running  from 
about  1340  —  the  date  of  his  birth  is  not  cer- 
tain —  to  1360.  Few  events  are  reported  of 
him  in  this  period.  There  is  his  change  in 
station,  probably  too  he  began  early  to  write 
verse;  and  then  in  1359,  as  a  soldier  in  the 
Hundred  Years'  War,  he  crossed  with  the  Eng- 
lish army  to  France,  was  taken  prisoner  there, 
and  ransomed  a  year  later.  Such  an  experience 
of  war  and  imprisonment  might  naturally  pro- 
duce rancor  toward  the  foe.  But  in  Chaucer's 
kindly  soul  there  was  no  room  for  rancor.  On 
the  contrary,  this  imprisonment  gave  him  an 
opportunity  to  know  his  sweet  enemy,  France, 
and  to  become  better  acquainted  with  French 
literature.  He  always  remained  an  admirer  of 
things  French,  though  eight  or  ten  years  later 
he  took  part  in  another  campaign  in  France. 

A  second  period  of  Chaucer's  life  is  that  be- 


50    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

tween  1360  and  1372.  Near  the  beginning  of 
this  period  he  seems  to  have  left  the  service  of 
the  Duke  of  Clarence  for  that  of  the  King  and 
to  have  come  under  the  special  patronage  of 
his  powerful  son  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster. In  1366  he  married  Philippa,  one  of  the 
ladies  in  waiting  on  the  Queen.  Her  last  name 
is  not  known.  Throughout  this  time  he  wrote 
under  French  influence  and,  always  disposed 
to  over-estimate  the  powers  of  others  in  com- 
parison with  his  own,  he  busied  himself  with 
translating  and  adapting  the  beautiful  French 
poetry  which  he  had  learned  to  enjoy.  During 
this  time  he  was  rapidly  advancing  in  court 
favor,  in  power  and  property. 

In  1372  a  new  period  of  his  life  begins  and 
extends  to  1386.  In  1372  he  was  sent  to  Italy 
to  settle  some  perplexing  questions  of  trade. 
A  year  was  spent  in  Genoa  and  Florence.  In 
Italy  he  found  the  Renaissance  even  more 
advanced  than  in  France  and  of  course  much 
more  than  in  remote  England.  He  came  under 
the  influence  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  Boccaccio. 
They  opened  to  him  a  new  world  of  beauty 
and  gave  fresh  impulse  to  his  poetic  powers. 
For  while  Chaucer  is  a  courtier,  soldier,  envoy, 
practical  man  of  affairs,  he  is  also  persistently 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  51 

a  writer,  eager  not  merely  to  enjoy  the  world 
but  also  to  report  it  for  the  enjoyment  of 
others.  His  audience  too  was  a  definite  one. 
He  was  a  singer  to  court  circles,  to  those  who 
valued  entertainment  and  the  light  touch  more 
than  earnest  reflection.  His  verse  needed  to 
be  attractive.  The  years  from  1372  to  1386 
have  been  called  Chaucer's  Italian  period 
when  the  influence  of  Italy  succeeded  that  of 
France.  But  the  period  involved  much  busi- 
ness besides.  During  it  Chaucer  served  seven 
times  as  a  foreign  envoy. 

By  1386  there  is  reason  to  believe  he  had 
set  himself  seriously  to  planning  and  compos- 
ing the  "Canterbury  Tales."  A  truly  English 
poetry  is  here  begun.  Chaucer  has  found  him- 
self, has  cast  off  foreign  influences  and  hence- 
forth ventures  to  set  forth  what  he  discovers 
in  ordinary  English  life.  And  now  for  the  first 
time  there  fell  upon  him  a  few  years  of  hard- 
ship, hardship  which  he  did  not  allow  to  check 
his  poetic  activity.  On  the  contrary,  he  seized 
on  the  unwonted  leisure  and  made  it  helpful 
for  his  great  design.  In  1388,  Parliament 
obliged  the  young  King  Ricliard  II  to  dismiss 
his  uncle,  John  of  Gaunt,  Cluiuccr's  constant 
friend  and  protector,  and  to  put  himself  under 


52    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

the  guidance  of  Gaunt's  brother  and  enemy, 
Gloucester.  Chaucer  shared  in  the  disfavor  of 
his  patron.  He  was  no  longer  acceptable  at 
court,  was  dropped  from  his  oflSces,  obliged  to 
mortgage  his  pensions,  and  the  splendid  house 
which  had  been  his  was  taken  away.  He  shows 
at  this  time  every  sign  of  hardship.  At  the 
beginning  too  of  this  dark  period  his  wife  died. 
But  hardship  could  not  long  attend  a  man  so 
cheerful,  attractive,  and  useful.  When  in  1389 
John  of  Gaunt  was  recalled,  offices  were  once 
more  given  to  Chaucer,  and  for  his  remaining 
years  he  had  little  to  complain  of  except  that 
his  income  was  not  always  sufficient  for  his 
expensive  modes  of  living.  Throughout  his 
life,  with  the  exception  of  the  brief  period  men- 
tioned, all  that  men  desire  seems  to  have  been 
his.  Besides  holding  other  lucrative  offices, 
he  was  comptroller  of  wool,  collector  of  cus- 
toms. Clerk  of  the  King's  Works,  inspector  of 
roads,  and  member  of  Parliament.  Yet  he 
pursued  intellectual  beauty  through  all  his  busy 
days  and,  coming  in  contact  with  a  wide  range 
of  human  nature,  he  enjoyed  it  all  and  de- 
lighted to  depict  its  varieties  for  our  delecta- 
tion. 

In  the  "Canterbury  Tales"  Chaucer  assem- 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  58 

bles  twenty-nine  characters,  men  and  women, 
each  sharply  distinguished  from  the  rest  and 
each  representing  a  social  type.  We  have  here 
a  kind  of  epitome  of  English  society.  It  has 
been  well  said  that  if  all  other  histories  of  the 
time  should  perish,  Chaucer's  book  alone  re- 
maining, we  might  know  pretty  well  how  the 
people  of  those  days  lived.  These  twenty-nine 
having  assembled  at  the  Tabard  Inn  in  Lon- 
don, set  forth  on  horseback  the  following  day 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  of 
Canterbury.  Pilgrimages  were  at  that  time  the 
popular  mode  of  combining  diversion,  piety, 
good  company,  and  safe  travel.  To  relieve  the 
tedium  of  the  way  the  host  of  the  Tabard  Inn, 
their  leader,  proposed  that  each  should  tell  a 
couple  of  tales  on  the  way  to  Canterbury  and 
a  couple  more  on  the  way  home.  Of  course  the 
scheme,  if  seriously  intended,  was  too  ambi- 
tious and  remained  unfinished.  Only  twenty- 
four  tales  are  recorded.  But  how  vivid  these 
are  I  IIow  marked  with  the  high  spirits,  the 
keen  observation,  the  humor  and  narrative 
skill  of  him  who  was  the  first  in  our  poetry  to 
study  his  fellow  men!  We  cannot  suppose  all 
the  tales  to  have  been  written  during  the  last 
years  of  Chaucer's  life.    He  is  more  likely  to 


54    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

have  then  brought  together  much  of  the  work 
of  previous  years,  to  have  reshaped  it  with 
ripened  judgment  for  his  immediate  purpose, 
to  have  added  certain  new  tales,  and  then  to 
liave  set  forth  the  whole,  happily  welded  to- 
gether with  interludes  of  talk,  as  a  kind  of 
Comedie  Humaine  of  the  English  people. 

Here  then  is  the  first  great  type  of  English 
poetry,  that  observational  type  which  under- 
lies all  others.  The  aim  is  pure  representation, 
the  joyous  exhibit  of  the  world  as  we  find  it. 
It  is  inapposite  to  complain  that  it  offers  us 
no  high  ideals.  Certainly  not.  Why  should 
Chaucer  concern  himself  with  such  perplexing 
things  .f^  Would  he  have  been  able  to  depict  his 
characters  with  his  present  hearty  accuracy  if 
he  had  also  felt  obliged  to  weigh  the  worth  of 
their  springs  of  action?  Instead,  he  makes  his 
cheerful  sun  to  shine  on  the  just  and  on  the  un- 
just. In  his  eyes  degraded  and  exalted  are  of 
equal  interest.  That  is,  he  works  as  Shakspere 
works,  dealing  as  fairly  with  his  villains  as  with 
the  purest  of  his  heroines.  All  are  here.  There 
is  nothing  one-sided  in  his  picture.  Only  it 
is  mere  depicting,  re-presentation.  Feeling 
strongly  the  glow  of  the  world  and  marvelously 
endowed  with  the  power  to  transfer  that  glow 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  65 

to  his  pages,  he  sits  in  judgment  on  no  man. 
Yet  where,  outside  Shakspere,  can  such  a  multi- 
fold world  be  seen?  How  we  may  enlarge  our 
experience  if,  putting  ourselves  under  Chau- 
cer's guidance,  we  let  him  introduce  us  to  the 
delightfully  mixed  society  he  knew!  For  while 
his  subjects  are  often  drawn  from  antiquity, 
from  legends  of  Greece  and  Rome  as  well  as 
from  the  credulous  stories  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  men  and  women  in  them  come  straight 
from  the  streets  of  London.  Even  when  their 
names  are  those  of  great  ones  of  old,  their  char- 
acters are  such  as  Chaucer  knew. 

To  what  extremes  Chaucer  was  ready  to 
carry  abstention  from  praise  and  blame  in 
order  to  remain  true  to  his  special  task  of  dis- 
passionate dramatic  narration  may  best  be 
seen  if  we  recall  the  four  momentous  events  of 
his  time:  the  great  war  with  France,  the  reli- 
gious awakening  under  Wiclif  and  his  follow- 
ers, the  Black  Deatli  which  destroyt^d  half  the 
population  of  England,  and  the  rising  of  the 
wretched  farm-laborers  under  Wat  Tyler.  One 
would  think  that  such  occurrences  would  have 
power  to  turn  any  one  from  pleasant  story- 
telling and  oblige  some  expression  of  personal 
emotion.    Chaucer   was   closely   involved   in 


56    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

them  all.  He  was  a  soldier  in  the  first.  His 
patron,  John  of  Gaunt,  favored  the  second.  The 
third  was  carrying  off  his  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances by  the  hundred.  And  the  fourth  shook 
London  to  its  foundations.  Yet  from  no  writ- 
ing of  Chaucer's  could  one  guess  the  signifi- 
cance of  any  of  these  tremendous  events.  While 
minutely  faithful  in  reporting  the  characters 
of  his  age,  he  keeps  prudently  clear  of  men- 
tioning its  incidents.   Wise  courtier  he! 

To  carry  over  to  his  readers  such  novel 
moods  of  mind  as  these,  so  making  them  feel 
the  living  world  as  he  felt  it,  Chaucer  needed 
technical  instruments  of  wider  compass  and 
flexibility  than  he  at  first  possessed.  A  few 
standard  verse-forms  had  answered  well  enough 
most  previous  requirements,  and  several  of 
them  Chaucer  retained  and  managed  with 
heightened  skill.  The  early  alliterative  verse, 
still  continued  in  "Piers  Plowman,"  and  also 
the  "fourteener" — seven  iambic  feet — a 
favorite  measure  of  rhyming  chroniclers  and 
popular  balladists,  he  discarded.  He  kept, 
however,  another  common  metre  of  the  time, 
the  octosyllabic,  of  four  iambics,  perceiving 
how  well  it  suited  subjects  of  such  easy  grace 
as  those  of  this  "Boke  of  the  Duchesse."   His 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  67 

contemporary,  Gower,  had  employed  it  for 
solid  narrative  and  ^rave  reflection,  for  which 
it  was  little  fit.  Milton  followed  Chaucer's 
lead  in  his  "Allegro"  and  "Penseroso,"  though 
with  exquisite  variations  of  the  foot;  and  But- 
ler found  in  it  the  appropriate  medium  for 
the  irresponsible  mockery  of  "Hudibras." 

Another  form  inherited  by  Chaucer  and 
brought  by  him  to  perfection  is  the  Rhyme 
Royal,  seven  pentameter  lines  rhyming  ahabhcCy 
and  differing  from  our  ordinary  six-lined  stanza 
only  by  the  insertion  of  a  line  between  the 
quatrain  and  the  final  couplet.  This  .  line, 
delaying  and  poising  the  stanza,  and  giving  it 
fuller  body,  imparts  to  it  a  delicate  lingering 
beauty  which  the  six-lined  form  lacks.  To  it  is 
due  much  of  the  pathetic  majesty  of  "Troilus 
and  Criseyde."  In  the  age  immediately  after 
Chaucer  Rhyme  Royal  was  much  in  fashion. 
Then  for  a  time  it  fell  out  of  favor.  \Yords- 
worth  used  it  in  "The  Leech-Gatherer."  And 
it  is  pleasant  to  see  Morris  and  Masefield  show- 
ing by  their  right  comprehension  of  its  apti- 
tudes that  they  are  true  metrical  children  of 
Chaucer. 

But  if  only  a  few  standard  measures  lay 
ready  to  Chaucer's  hand,  he  set  his  own  strong 


58    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

mark  on  those  few  and  added  to  them  one 
which  has  proved  of  extreme  value  in  EngHsh 
verse.  He  is  the  inventor  of  the  heroic  couplet, 
the  measure  in  which  ten  syllables,  five  iambic 
feet,  make  up  a  line  which  rhymes  with  a  sim- 
ilar one  following.  In  the  connecting  rhyme 
the  couplet  finds  its  unity,  becoming  thus  the 
shortest  of  English  stanzas.  Already  we  have 
seen  octosyllabic  couplets,  but  these  were  in- 
adequate for  Chaucer's  purpose.  He  needed  a 
more  wealthy  and  weighty  line.  He  added 
therefore  an  iambic  foot  to  each  octosyllabic 
line,  still  keeping  the  rhyme.  In  this  way  he 
obtained  something  peculiarly  suitable  for 
story-telling.  Within  a  fairly  capacious  couplet 
a  piece  of  reality  is,  as  it  were,  broken  off. 
After  this  has  been  contemplated  as  a  united 
whole,  the  reader  passes  to  a  further  section  of 
the  story  in  a  second  couplet,  and  so  on.  Or  if 
reality  appears  thus  too  disjointed,  it  is  easy  to 
check  the  pause  at  the  end  of  any  couplet  and 
send  the  thought  directly  on  into  the  succeed- 
ing line.  So  by  arranging  run-over  or  end- 
stopped  lines  different  metrical  effects  can  be 
fitted  to  different  moods  of  mind. 

This  form  of  verse  has  ever  since  been  found 
immensely  useful  in  more  ways  than  that  in 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  59 

which  Chaucer  employed  it.  It  serves  admir- 
ably for  epigrammatic  and  moral  sayings. 
Words  of  wisdom  are  doubly  impressive  when 
massed  in  this  brief  but  sufficient  compass. 
Indeed  the  measure  fits  so  well  many  ends  that 
it  has  become  one  of  our  commonest.  But  that 
very  flexibility  exposes  it  to  dangers.  It  may 
easily  lack  dignity  and  continuous  interest. 
Managed  as  it  is  by  Chaucer,  it  is  an  instru- 
ment of  great  power  and  animation,  I  have 
called  Chaucer  the  inventor  of  this  verse,  the 
heroic  couplet,  as  it  has  been  named.  More 
exactly  he  is  its  introducer.  Five  foot  iambic 
lines  existed  before  his  time,  and  occasional 
instances  of  combining  them  into  a  couplet 
could  no  doubt  be  found  in  French  poetry.  But 
Chaucer  was  the  first  to  perceive  the  impor- 
tance of  such  a  couplet,  to  develop  its  possi-- 
bilities,  and  through  his  weighty  example  to 
bring  it  into  familiar  use. 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

For  Chaucer's  sharp  drawing  of  individual  character, 
read  the  Prologue  of  the  "Canterbury  Tales."  Or,  if 
only  a  few  sections  can  be  read,  "The  Knighte,"  lines  43- 
78,  "The  Prioresse,"  lines  118-1G2,  "The  Cook,"  lines 
285-308,  "The  Persoun,"  lines  477-528,  "The  Miller," 
lines  545-564,  will  show  the  range  and  accuracy  of  his 
portraiture. 

Read  too,  for  continuous  humor,  "The  Nonne  Preestes 
Tale,"  with  its  Prologue  as  an  example  of  the  conversa- 
tions on  the  road. 

For  splendid  description,  "The  Temple  of  Mars  in 
The  Knightes  Tale,"  lines  1970-2050. 

For  psychologic  and  dramatic  insight,  the  meeting  of 
the  lovers  in  "Troilus  and  Criseyde,"  hk.  ii,  st.  88-97. 

For  spirited  action,  the  sea-fight  of  Cleopatra,  in  the 
"Legend  of  Good  Women,"  lines  624-665. 

For  lightness  of  touch  in  depicting  a  charming  lady, 
"The  Boke  of  the  Duchesse,"  lines  805-906. 


m 

Edmund  Spenser 


in 

EDMUND  SPENSER 

In  the  popular  mind  Chaucer  and  Spenser  are 
grouped  together,  as  if  separated  by  only  a 
brief  interval.  In  reality  two  hundred  years 
intervene.  What  this  means  we  can  make 
clearer  by  saying  that  there  is  the  same  distance 
between  the  "Canterbury  Tales"  and  "The 
Faerie  Queene"  as  there  is  between  the  latter 
and  the  "Lyrical  Ballads"  of  Wordsworth; 
that  is,  the  interval  would  stretch  across  two 
thirds  of  all  poetry  since  Spenser's  time.  How 
does  it  happen,  then,  that  we  so  confuse  the 
eras  of  the  two?  There  are  two  grave  reasons, 
apart  from  the  fact  that  Spenser  looks  up  to 
Chaucer  as  his  master  and  speaks  of  him  as  the 
one  whom  poetically  he  follows.  In  the  first 
place,  distance  is  regularly  "foreshortened  in 
the  tracts  of  time."  In  looking  far  back  we  do 
not  measure  intervals  with  anything  like  tlie 
vividness  we  feel  for  those  that  have  recently 
passed.  But  more  misleading  still  is  the  bar- 
renness   of    the    iutervenmg    period.     Names 


66    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

enough  of  poets  appear  in  these  centuries, 
respectable  men  who  have  each  done  some- 
thing to  keep  the  tradition  of  poetry  unbroken, 
but  they  are  men  of  mediocre  power.  Such  was 
the  little  group  immediately  around  Chaucer 
—  Gower,  Lydgate,  Occleve.  The  writers  who 
followed  —  Skelton,  Hawes,  Barclay  —  were 
miable  to  hold  the  path  which  Chaucer  had 
marked  out.  They  could  not  write  verse  of  his 
flexible  firmness.  Their  lines  either,  retaining 
his  ten  syllables,  show  a  mechanical  rigidity  or 
more  commonly  through  looseness  of  structure 
the  line  is  almost  lost.  In  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century  Wyatt,  Surrey,  Sackville, 
Gascoigne  form  a  group  of  scholars  interested 
in  developing  the  resources  of  the  language  and 
in  giving  better  structure  to  its  verse.  Their 
admirable  work  reaches  its  consummation  in 
Spenser,  with  whom  modern  poetry  begins. 
Reasons  for  the  long  delay  are  not  far  to  seek. 
During  these  two  centuries  no  man  of  any- 
thing like  Chaucer's  genius  was  born.  Politi- 
cal conditions,  too,  were  unfavorable;  in  the 
early  time  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  in  the  later 
the  change  from  the  Catholic  to  the  Protes- 
tant faith.  But  probably  a  greater  hindrance 
was  the  unsettled  state  of  the  language  itself. 


EDMUND  SPENSER  67 

As  the  perplexing  final  e  used  by  Chaucer 
gradually  disappeared  from  popular  speech, 
it  became  increasingly  difficult  to  read  him 
metrically.  His  great  example  was  lost,  and 
it  became  necessary  to  formulate  again  the 
principles  of  English  prosody.  This  was  accom- 
plished by  Spenser  and  the  group  immediately 
preceding  him. 

We  have  seen  how  Chaucer  had  perfected  a 
type  of  poetry  expressive  of  satisfaction  with 
the  world  as  it  stands  —  joie  de  vivre,  delight 
in  everything  that  belongs  to  man.  The  form 
which  this  observational  verse  assumes  is  natu- 
rally the  narrative,  a  form  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  Chaucer.  He  was  merely  the  first  to 
unfold  its  dramatic  possibilities.  But  narra- 
tive poets  are  common  throughout  the  follow- 
ing ages,  though  few  of  these  story-tellers  pos- 
sess Chaucer's  vital  interest  in  humanity. 
Spenser  himself  once  tried  this  type  in  "Mother 
Hubberd's  Tale,"  and  wisely  abandoned  it.  In 
the  seventeenth  century  it  was  extensively 
used.  Chamberlayne's  "  Pharonida,"  Davon- 
ant's  "Gondibert,"  Chalkliill's  "Tlicalma  and 
Clearchus"  are  examples.  In  the  eighteenth 
century  it  declined  and  was  largely  superseded 
by  aphoristic  verse  and  prose  fiction.    When 


68    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

once  the  novel  is  established  there  would  seem 
to  be  no  more  need  of  narrative  verse.  But  on 
the  contrary,  descriptive  poetry  takes  on  new 
life.  With  the  nineteenth  century,  Scott  writes 
rhymed  and  unrhymed  novels.  Crabbe  follows 
hard  after  Chaucer  in  depicting  the  life  of  his 
time,  and  a  long  train  of  narrative  poets  fol- 
low, each  having  his  own  special  color.  In 
Byron  and  Shelley  the  tale  becomes  doctrin- 
aire. Hunt,  Keats,  and  William  Morris  revive 
its  earlier  narrative  interest.  The  last  especially 
has  often  been  mistaken  for  a  child  of  Chaucer. 
He  has  stirring  stories  much  after  the  fashion 
of  the  "Canterbury  Tales,"  and  frequently  too 
he  uses  Chaucer's  couplet  and  Rhyme  Royal. 
Yet  what  a  gulf  separates  Morris's  work 
from  Chaucer's!  The  two  are  antithetic.  For 
Chaucer  is  not  merely  a  story-teller.  He  tells 
stories  of  his  own  time,  fills  them  with  the 
things  and  people  he  knew,  and  even  when 
taking  his  plots  from  antiquity  so  modernizes 
them  as  to  give  them  the  traits  the  men  and 
women  of  his  England  actually  had.  Morris  is 
altogether  romantic.  His  characters  are  dream- 
creatures.  They  generally  profess  to  have  come 
from  afar  and  they  use  a  language  which  no 
human  being  ever  spoke.     They  have  more 


EDMUND  SPENSER  69 

kinship  with  Spenser  than  with  Chaucer.  But 
while  narrative  poetry  may  thus  be  used  for  ro- 
mantic purposes  rather  than  reahstic,  the  type 
as  first  estabHshed  aimed  at  a  representation 
of  the  actual  world,  though  even  then  it  was 
the  temperament  of  the  writer  which  gave  to 
the  narrative  its  poetic  charm. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  the  maturity 
of  our  enjoyment  of  poetry  can  be  fairly  meas- 
ured by  the  degree  of  importance  we  attach  to 
its  emotional  as  contrasted  with  its  realistic 
elements.  Narrative  poetry  is  elementary. 
With  it  poetic  interest  begins.  Children  and 
primitive  people  want  a  story  and  little  else, 
except  strongly  marked  rhythm.  As  artistic 
taste  becomes  refined,  incident  retreats  and  is 
regarded  merely  as  a  basis  for  emotional  devel- 
opment. It  is  the  same  with  our  enjoyment  of 
pictures.  We  at  first  prefer  those  that  tell  a 
story.  Of  each  we  ask  what  it  is  all  about?  But 
by  degrees  we  come  to  see  that  the  anecdotic 
power  of  the  painter  has  Httle  to  do  with  his 
art.  As  an  artist,  his  mind  is  on  otlier  things  — 
on  color,  on  light  and  shade,  on  the  harmony 
of  lines,  the  balance  of  masses.  He  looks  upon 
his  figures  as  important  only  so  far  as  they 
mirror  a  mood  of  mind,  and   the   instruments 


70    FORMiVTIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

for  conveying  that  mood  are  the  technical 
matters  I  have  mentioned. 

Curiously  enough  we  have  recently  seen  one 
of  the  fine  arts  move  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Up  to  our  time  music  had  aimed  at  pure  beauty; 
"absolute  music"  we  called  it,  the  emotional 
concord  and  sequence  of  sounds.  But  it  oc- 
curred to  certain  ingenious  persons  that  they 
might  by  manipulating  sounds  suggest  a  story 
and  represent  facts.  So  program-music  has 
been  bewildering  us  all.  Strange,  that  just 
when  in  painting  we  are  coming  to  regard  the 
story  as  a  mere  auxiliary  of  the  picture,  and 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  poets  have 
long  known  something  similar  to  be  true  in 
their  art,  the  musicians  are  now  endeavoring 
to  tell  us  stories  and  are  disparaging  the 
sesthetic  cadences  which  have  pleased  the 
world  so  long! 

If  what  I  have  been  saying  is  sound  and 
description,  accordance  with  outward  fact,  is 
but  a  subordinate  part  of  poetry,  its  mere 
starting-point,  then  we  might  expect  a  type 
of  poetry  to  arise  which  should  be  the  very 
opposite  of  Chaucer's.  A  poet  might  well 
desire  to  withdraw  as  far  as  possible  from  sub- 
jection to  fact  and  find  in  verse  a  veritable 


EDMUND  SPENSER  71 

refuge  from  reality.  For  that  real  world,  which 
Chaucer  enjoyed  so  much,  oppresses  many. 
Its  natural  laws,  governing  inexorably  physical 
change,  often  seem  hostile  to  man.  They  ignore 
our  ideals  and  conflict  with  our  desires.  Yet 
ideals  and  desires  are  all  that  lend  life  worth. 
It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  in  every  literature 
certain  poets  turn  disdainfully  away  from 
reality  and  live  in  a  region  of  ideal  emotion. 
They  allow  themselves  only  so  much  contact 
with  actual  experience  as  will  bring  the  creative 
impulse  into  play.  The  master  of  all  these 
poetic  idealists  is  Edmund  Spenser. 

Spenser  and  Chaucer,  so  often  coupled  in  our 
thought,  have  only  the  relation  to  one  another 
of  a  complete  and  supplemental  antithesis. 
Spenser,  it  is  true,  regarded  Chaucer  as  his 
master,  and  no  doubt  gained  from  Chaucer 
much  acquaintance  with  the  metrical  tools  of 
his  trade.  But  he  understood  the  substance  of 
Chaucer  as  little  as  Virgil  understood  Homer. 
His  office  it  was  to  develop  a  type  of  poetry 
not  hitherto  known.  Let  us  try  to  grasp  the 
central  thought  of  this  new  type  and  see  how 
naturally  the  special  qualities  of  Spenser's 
poetry  result  from  it.  We  have  already  noticed 
his  alienation  from  actual  existence,  and  his 


72    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

absorption  in  a  world  created  by  himself.  This 
constant  tendency  is  manifested  in  a  variety  of 
ways.  I  will  examine  a  few  of  them. 

Spenser  is  busied  with  the  abstract  and  gen- 
eral, nature  with  individuals.  Nature  knows 
John  and  Susan,  not  universal  man;  blades  of 
grass,  not  grass.  Everywhere  we  meet  only 
particular  existences.  General  objects,  such  as 
classes,  laws,  abstract  ideas,  are  products  of 
our  minds,  put  upon  multitudinous  nature  for 
our  convenience  of  comprehension  or  memory. 
Similarity,  and  those  connecting  relationships 
from  which  generalization  springs,  belong  to 
the  beholding  mind  rather  than  to  existing 
things.  Chaucer  understands  this  and  in  his 
naturalistic  poetry  gives  us  no  picture  of  man 
as  man  nor,  of  what  is  more  attractive,  of 
woman  as  woman.  Women  abound,  and  all 
diverse —  Criseyde,  Emily,  Blanche,  Griselda, 
the  wife  of  Bath  —  they  are  as  vital  creatures 
as  those  whom  Shakspere  knew.  Spenser,  on 
the  other  hand,  turning  ever  away  from  reality, 
prefers  the  general  to  the  specific.  In  none  of 
his  Books  and  Cantos  shall  we  find  a  rounded, 
solid  human  being.  All  his  figures  are  abstrac- 
tions, qualities,  detached  from  particular  per- 
sons and  generalized.  What  shadowy  creatures 


EDMUND  SPENSER  73 

are  Britomart,  Belphoebe,  Florimell,  Duessa, 
Phsedria!  His  frank  personifications — Mam- 
mon, Mutabilitie  —  have  more  blood  in  them. 
And  in  all  this  Spenser  is  true  to  type.  Con- 
crete individuals  belong  to  that  physical  uni- 
verse from  which  he,  as  a  good  Platonist,  turns 
away.   His  home  is  in  a  world  of  ideas. 

Spenser  is  moral,  too,  and  lays  great  stress 
on  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  beautiful 
and  ugly.  Nature  knows  no  such  values.  What- 
ever of  hers  happens  to  fit  our  desires  we  rightly 
enough  call  good  or  valuable.  Such  classifica- 
tions belong,  however,  not  to  nature  but  to  our 
judging  minds.  Good  and  bad,  high  and  low, 
noble  and  ignoble  are  words  that  express  the 
relations  which  things  bear  to  us.  They  do  not 
mark  qualities  in  the  things  themselves  or  in 
relations  between  things.  Parted  from  man 
nothing  is  good,  nothing  bad.  Each  object 
merely  exists,  that  is  all.  To  get  moral  or 
aesthetic  worth  it  must  be  studied  with  refer- 
ence to  some  human  need.  Chaucer,  as  a  true 
naturalist,  does  not  sit  in  judgment.  He 
watches  whatever  conduct  occurs  and  reports 
it  vivaciously,  whether  men  call  it  good  or  bad. 
Nobody  is  condemned.  The  coarse  must  be 
coarse,  the  refined  refined.    That  is  the  way 


74    FORM.\TIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

men  are  made,  and  so  Chaucer  lets  them  ap- 
pear. But  such  natural  equality  is  shocking  to 
Spenser.  He  is  ever  applying  moral  standards, 
discriminating  those  desires  which  ennoble 
from  those  which  degrade.  In  his  ideal  world 
the  struggle  between  good  and  evil,  beauty  and 
ugliness,  is  incessant. 

This  contrast  between  the  two  poets  is  espe- 
cially striking  in  their  estimate  of  womankind. 
Chaucer  knew  women  well.  He  married  early, 
early  became  a  page  at  court,  and  was  never 
shut  off  from  women  by  keeping  terms  at  a 
university.  Through  his  long  life  as  courtier, 
ambassador,  civic  officer,  he  met  women  of 
every  rank  and  character.  He  made  them 
interesting  objects  of  study,  precisely  as  he  did 
men.  He  saw  their  beauty,  gentle  manners, 
and  pretty  caprices;  their  love  of  pleasure, 
praise,  dress,  change,  intrigue;  their  piety,  for- 
giving spirit,  and  hardy  fidelity  to  those  they 
love.  Cool  and  dispassionate,  he  watched  these 
dispositions  and  many  more  mingle  in  all 
degrees,  shadings,  and  contrarieties,  till  each 
woman  emerged  on  his  pages  as  distinct  a  per- 
sonality as  any  man,  and  quite  as  amusing. 
On  the  other  hand  Spenser's  acquaintance 
with  women  seems  to  have  been  slight  and 


EDMUND  SPENSER  75 

artificial.  After  seven  years  at  the  university 
he  spent  a  short  time  in  the  country,  where  he 
probably  experienced  a  disappointment  in  love. 
During  most  of  his  remaining  years  he  was 
either  accompanying  the  army  in  Ireland  or 
living  in  his  castle  there  alone.  To  him,  there- 
fore, woman  is  always  something  far  away  and 
ethereal,  an  exalted  object  of  aspiration,  the 
guiding  spirit  of  us  poor  men.  Few  differential 
qualities  are  reported  to  distinguish  one  woman 
from  another,  but  all  alike  conform  to  the 
angelic  pattern  —  angehc  or  devilish;  for  when 
an  angel  falls,  it  becomes  a  devil.  A  perverted 
woman  is  consequently  a  fiercer  power  for  evil 
than  ever  a  man  can  be.  She  is  as  horrible  as 
true  woman  is  worshipful,  and  all  are  com- 
pletely the  one  or  the  other.  How  rightly  fic- 
titious is  all  thisl  How  suitable  for  him  who 
flies  reality,  thinks  only  in  abstractions,  and 
feels  life  itself  to  be  but  a  struggle  of  right  and 
wrong! 

The  contrast  between  realist  and  idealist 
appears  again  in  the  poetic  form  employed. 
Spenser's  is  the  allegory,  Chaucer's  the  narra- 
tive, and  each  has  chosen  wisely.  Chaucer, 
concerned  as  he  was  with  noting  things  as  they 
ai)pear,   perceived   that  everything   is   linked 


76    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

with  everything,  what  now  exists  containing 
within  itself  the  causes  of  what  will  be  here- 
after. Nothing  in  the  real  world  is  stationary. 
All  is  in  an  orderly  flux.  To  trace  the  fixed 
sequences  and  set  them  in  orderly  narration  is 
the  business  of  the  good  observer.  But  Spenser 
is  something  more  than  an  observer.  He  is  not 
content  to  stand  smiling  while  the  world  runs 
its  close-linked  course,  neglectful  of  ideals. 
That  sorry  scheme  of  things  he  will  shatter  and 
by  allegory  "remould  it  nearer  to  the  heart's 
desire."  With  him  ideals  control  circumstances 
and  laws  of  nature  have  httle  respect  shown 
them.  On  his  pages  things  happen  which  are 
grossly  improbable,  yet  do  not  disturb  us.  The 
current  of  events  is  guided  by  personal  agen- 
cies. The  semblance  of  real  life  gives  place  to 
a  glorious  dream  of  what  life  should  be,  and 
rigid  narrative  yields  to  easeful  allegory.  Let 
us  not  condemn.  A  similar  instinct  is  in  us  all. 
Worried  by  business,  by  the  unkind  word  of  a 
friend,  by  the  illness  of  one  we  love,  we  turn  if 
we  are  wise  to  the  piano  and  for  half  an  hour 
escape  the  jarrings  of  reality.  Here  we  enter  a 
realm  of  beauty  where  everything  is  harmoni- 
ous. Such  is  Spenser's  conception  of  poetry.  It 
is  intentionally  unreal,  a  refuge,  a  restorative. 


EDMUND  SPENSER  77 

This  difference  of  mental  attitude  affects 
even  the  speech  of  the  two  poets.  Chaucer 
employs  the  sjturdy  words  of  ordinary  life.  It  is 
true  he  had  a  wide  range  to  choose  from.  Latin, 
Saxon,  Norman-French  were  all  current  in  his 
time,  and  his  judicious  choice  among  them 
largely  helped  to  establish  a  distinctive  English 
tongue.  Hardly  any  other  writer  has  had  such 
wide  linguistic  influence.  But  that  is  because 
he  sought  words  of  clearness,  weight,  and  dur- 
able significance.  Whatever  words  were  good 
for  prose  served  Chaucer  for  poetry.  But  since 
for  Spenser  a  great  gulf  is  fixed  between  poetry 
and  reality,  the  diction  of  the  one  is  unfit  for 
the  other.  He  adopts  a  mode  of  expression 
which  delights  by  its  very  unfamiliarity.  He 
resuscitates  old  words,  coins  new  ones,  in  short 
produces  such  a  conglomerate  of  language  as 
never  proceeded  from  human  lips,  but  which 
is  exactly  suited  to  beautiful  allegories.  He  has 
an  extraordinary  sensitiveness  to  the  carrying 
power  of  words  and  picks  tliem  with  a  view  not 
merely  to  their  central  meaning,  but  to  that 
penuml^ra  of  feeling  which  surrounds  them. 
His  delicious  diction  transports  us  to  a  fairy 
region  whose  inhabitants,  we  may  imagine, 
eat  cake  instead  of  bread.  The  language  of  the 
streets  is  not  for  such  unearthly  beings. 


78    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

In  calling  attention  to  these  contrasts  with 
the  realistic  Chaucer  I  hope  I  have  not  dwelt 
unduly  on  the  qualities  which  the  dreamy 
Spenser  docs  not  possess.  His  avoidance  of  all 
that  is  specific,  his  refusal  to  take  part  in  a 
non-moral  world,  his  allegorizing  and  slender 
regard  for  fact,  his  substitution  of  a  poetic  dic- 
tion for  that  of  ordinary  life  are  not  defects, 
but  essential  elements  of  his  power  and  charm. 
For  he  is  aiming  elsewhere  than  the  observing 
or  reflective  mind.  We  should  approach  him 
primarily  as  a  painter  or  a  musician.  The  effect 
of  his  poetry  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  splendid 
pageants  much  cultivated  in  his  time.  The  eye 
is  feasted  with  a  succession  of  graceful  forms 
and  brilliant  scenes,  shadowing  forth  some 
moral  truth.  He  inherits  from  the  Moralities 
which  the  Church  had  patronized  in  the  age 
preceding  his,  where  the  several  vices  and  vir- 
tues were  exhibited  with  just  enough  fantastic 
narrative  to  stick  them  together.  In  Spenser's 
own  time  Court  pageants  abounded.  He  had 
fed  his  eye  on  gorgeous  drapery,  stately  bear- 
ing, equable  motions.  He  was  familiar  with 
the  blazonry  of  war.  All  this  he  transfers  to 
his  pages,  informs  it  with  a  moral;  and  makes 
it  yield  us  just  such  a  thrill  as  a  beholder 


EDMUND  SPENSER  79 

would  feel.  We  may  call  Spenser  the  supreme 
showman,  for  he  writes  as  the  painter  paints; 
only  that  he  is  occupied  not  so  much  with 
minute  observation  of  single  facts  as  with  the 
exuberant  glory  reflected  from  the  entire  scene. 
Space  and  generality  are  essential  elements  of 
Spenser's  power.  He  has  fewer  quotable  lines 
than  most  poets,  but  more  magnificent  stanzas. 
Or  shall  we  rather  call  him  the  supreme  musi- 
cian? Certainly  no  other  among  our  poets, 
unless  his  pupil  Milton,  has  given  to  words  such 
distributed  harmony,  so  flexible  are  his  lines, 
so  smooth-shpping,  so  welcome  as  mere  sound. 
Only  in  this  field,  too,  as  in  that  of  scenery,  his 
effects  are  broad  and  massive,  even  when  most 
subtle.  He  uses  much  alliteration  and  abun- 
dant tone-color,  but  both  are  employed  to  link 
his  passage  and  propel  the  reader  on.  They 
do  not  invite  us  to  pause  and  admire  the  curi- 
ous art,  as  do  inferior  and  tinkling  poets.  All 
the  traditional  metres  of  his  predecessors  are 
at  his  command,  but  he  has  distinct  preferences 
among  them.  The  octosyllabic  couplet,  a  favor- 
ite before  his  time,  he  uses  only  in  the  Envoy 
to  "The  Shepherd's  Calendar."  There  is  not 
room  in  it  for  splendor.  The  decasyllabic  coup- 
let, too,  which  Chaucer  if  he  did  not  invent 


80    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

at  least  domesticated,  is  used  by  Spenser  but 
once  or  twice.  Couplet  measures  have  too  short 
a  flight.  But  he  uses  with  extreme  delicacy  the 
more  complex  metres :  —  the  six,  seven,  and 
eight  lined  stanzas  of  iambic  decasyllabics. 
The  special  cadences  appropriate  to  each  he 
brings  out  with  a  sweetness  never  heard  before. 
Especially  delightful  to  my  ear  is  his  handling 
of  the  seven-lined  stanza,  Chaucer's  Rhyme 
Royal.  • 

But  these  are  all  too  weak  for  his  ultimate 
and  heaven-scaling  purpose.  For  transporting 
us  from  our  "too,  too  solid  earth"  to  fairyland 
he  builds  the  most  magnificent  structure  Eng- 
lish poetry  possesses.  We  name  it  from  him 
the  Spenserian  stanza  and  almost  demand  its 
use  whenever  in  our  time  voluminous  emotion 
sways  a  poet's  mind.  The  stanza  is  long,  but 
its  nine  lines  are  lashed  together  by  an  ingenious 
rhyming  system,  ababbcbcc.  So  large  a  block 
is  in  danger  of  falling  apart;  to  prevent  which, 
the  same  sound  is  repeated  over  and  over,  two 
of  the  repetitions  falling  at  critical  points,  the 
middle  and  end  of  the  stanza.  The  summing-up 
to  a  culminating  close  is  aided  by  this  repeti- 
tion, but  gains  its  supreme  impressiveness 
through  the  simple  device  of  two  extra  sylla- 


EDMUND  SPENSER  81 

bles  in  the  last  line.  Instead  of  being  con- 
structed with  five  iambics,  like  the  rest,  the 
concluding  line  has  six,  a  form  of  line  first  used 
in  a  French  poem  celebrating  the  deeds  of 
Alexander  and  hence  known  subsequently  as 
an  Alexandrine.  What  astonishing  effects  are 
worked  by  this  long  supplemental  fine,  form- 
ing, as  it  does,  a  noticeable  pause,  summarizing 
its  stanza,  and  at  the  same  time  supplying  a 
link  to  bind  stanza  to  stanza  1  Surveying  the 
stanza  as  a  whole,  one  must  see  that  no  other 
could  so  surely  convey  the  splendors  on  which 
Spenser's  heart  is  set.  The  needful  magic  is  in 
the  web  of  it. 

The  Spenserian  stanza,  however,  came  slowly 
into  general  use.  Whether  on  account  of  its 
novelty  or  because  poets  hesitated  to  rival 
Spenser's  magnificence,  only  a  few  varieties  of 
it  appeared  during  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  eighteenth  had  too  little  sensuous  feeling 
to  find  it  congenial;  and  while  Thomson,  Shen- 
stone,  Beattie,  and  a  few  others  made  trial  of 
it,  their  results  are  effortful  and  pretty  remote 
from  Spenser's.  With  the  Romantic  Move- 
ment at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury this  stanza,  like  nmch  else  in  the  early 
poetry,  was  revived  and  once  more  '*  bards  of 


82    FOR]VIATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

passion  and  of  mirth  '*  developed  its  riches.  In 
it  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats,  Arnold  have  written 
their  masterpieces.  To-day  there  is  no  lack  of 
honor  for  Spenser's  great  achievement. 

But  we  shall  not  lend  an  ear  of  just  appreci- 
ation either  to  it  or  to  Spenser's  other  poetry 
if  we  fail  to  observe  that  it  is  not  to  our  intelli- 
gence that  he  primarily  makes  appeal.  He  does 
not  rouse  us  to  thought;  he  would  turn  us  from 
it  rather.  It  is  no  paradox  to  say  that  he  dis- 
tinctly aims  at  monotony.  At  first  it  would 
seem  a  fatal  aim  for  a  poet.  Many  uncon- 
sciously attain  it.  Spenser  persistently  seeks  it 
and  uses  it  as  one  of  his  chief  poetic  resources. 
It  is  easy  to  see  why.  Like  all  musicians  he 
desires  not  to  instruct,  but  to  throw  us  into  an 
emotional  mood.  To  accomplish  this  he  must 
lull  us,  weave  over  us  a  hypnotic  spell.  When 
we  hypnotize  a  person  we  take  from  him  all 
diversity  of  interest,  confining  his  attention  to 
certain  selected  aspects  of  things.  Then  we 
can  introduce  whatever  ideas  we  will.  In  some 
such  way  Spenser  makes  use  of  monotony. 
Listening  to  his  magic  music,  we  withdraw  our 
thoughts  largely  from  the  specific  statements 
made,  receiving  chiefly  a  soothing  lull.  As  this 
overcomes  us,  the  mood  is  induced  which  Spen- 


EDMUND  SPENSER  8$ 

ser  predestined.  How  subtle  he  is  in  produc- 
ing this  mood  all  know  who  have  examined 
his  stanza  critically.  With  what  delicacy  the 
alliterative  throb  is  introduced,  so  that  while 
its  effect  is  felt  the  means  are  hidden.  The 
harmonizing  vowel-color  which  he  distributes 
throughout  a  stanza  is  exactly  congruous  with 
the  mood  he  would  induce.  The  same  musical 
purpose  directs  his  manipulations  of  the  line. 
Somewhere  near  their  middle  all  lines  require 
a  brief  pause,  known  as  the  "caesura. "  Placing 
the  caesura  here  or  there  will  vary  the  music  and 
modify  the  mood.  So  will  halting  the  Hue  at 
its  close  or  giving  it  continuity  with  the  next. 
Spenser  uses  both,  but  is  more  inclined  to  the 
latter,  caring  much  for  swing  and  flow  in  his 
stanza.  Often  he  will  sweep  a  stanza  through 
its  entire  length  with  no  full  pause  from  first 
word  to  last.  All  these  artifices,  like  those  of 
the  musician,  are  employed  by  Spenser  with 
sure-handed  skill  to  carry  us  away  from  inhar- 
monious reality  to  the  shining  regions  of  fairy- 
land. 

Spenser's  life,  1.552-1599,  covers  one  of  the 
supreme  periods  of  English  history,  including, 
as  it  does,  the  Spanish  wars  with  the  defeat  of 
the  Armada,  the  struggle  with  Mary,  Queen  of 


84    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Scots,  the  exploration  of  a  new  world,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  new  faith.  In  certain  re- 
spects there  is  a  strange  analogy  between  his 
life  and  Chaucer's.  Each  lived  in  the  reign  of 
a  heroic  sovereign  who  was  felt  to  embody  the 
aspirations  of  an  awakening  people.  Glorious 
wars  too  were  in  progress;  in  Chaucer's  time 
the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  France,  in  the 
time  of  Spenser  the  Spanish  and  Irish  wars. 
But  there  were  no  such  desolating  domestic 
conflicts  as  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  carried  on 
in  the  barren  interval  between  Chaucer  and 
Spenser.  Fortunate  epochs  those,  for  both 
poets  1 

In  Spenser's  life,  however,  we  may  find  some 
grounds  for  his  exaltation  of  a  dream-world 
above  the  actual.  The  details  of  that  life,  it  is 
true,  are  almost  as  few  and  doubtful  as  those  in 
the  case  of  Chaucer.  But  the  dates  of  birth 
and  death  are  fixed  with  some  degree  of  cer- 
tainty, as  well  as  those  of  the  three  periods  into 
which  Spenser's  hfe  may  naturally  be  divided : 

(1)  the  years  of  education,  1552-1576,  up  to 
the  time  when  Spenser  left  the  University; 

(2)  the  Wanderjahre,  or  unsettled  time,  1576- 
1588;  and  the  Meistcrjahre,  or  time  of  consum- 
mate power,  1588-1599.   Of  the  other  known 


EDMUND  SPENSER  86 

events  in  the  life  of  Spenser  I  touch  on  only 
those  which  illustrate  the  type  of  his  poetry. 

(1)  Like  Chaucer  he  comes  of  commercial 
stock,  his  father  being  a  London  cloth  mer- 
chant. Characteristically,  and  unlike  Chaucer, 
he  romances  on  his  birth  and  imagines  himself 
connected  with  the  noble  house  of  Spenser,  a 
claim  which  has  not  been  substantiated.  But 
he  early  turned  away  from  trade,  was  prepared 
for  the  University  at  the  Merchant  Tailors 
School  in  London,  and  entered  Pembroke  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  in  1569  as  a  sizar,  or  poor 
student  —  as  we  say,  on  a  scholarship.  Here 
he  met  three  strong  influences,  all  tending  to 
draw  him  away  from  the  world  about  him.  The 
first  was  classicism.  We  all  know  how  in  the 
early  Renaissance  the  discovery  of  classical  art 
and  literature  brought  to  man  a  more  intimate 
knowledge  of  himself  and  a  closer  acquaint- 
ance with  nature.  But  as  the  Renaissance 
advanced,  and  especially  in  the  later  Renais- 
sance of  Spenser's  time,  classical  interests  be- 
came an  excuse  for  departure  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  nature  and  for  magnifying  the  worth 
of  ornament,  a  tendency  always  strong  in 
Spenser.  Classical  studies  of  this  artificial  sort 
were  much  in  vogue  in  the  Cambridge  of  Spen- 


86    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

ser's  time  and  deeply  affected  him.  A  leader 
in  the  movement  was  Spenser's  special  friend, 
Gabriel  Harvey.  This  thorough-going  pedant, 
who  had  lost  all  sense  of  present  reality  through 
devotion  to  antiquity,  was  attempting  to  in- 
duce Englishmen  to  abandon  their  native  mode 
of  accentual  verse  for  the  quantitative  classical 
measures.  While  Spenser  did  not  permanently 
adopt  this  absurdity,  the  influence  of  Harvey 
and  his  circle  soon  appeared:  disastrously  in 
the  artificial  pastorahsm  of  "  The  Shepherd's 
Calendar,"  dedicated  to  Harvey,  and  bene- 
ficially in  the  experiments  there  undertaken 
for  enlarging  the  range  of  English  metres. 
A  collateral  gain  from  the  acquaintance  with 
Harvey  is  a  series  of  letters  between  the  friends 
which  form  a  valuable  source  for  our  knowledge 
of  Spenser's  life  at  the  time  they  were  written. 
A  still  more  powerful  influence  then  at  work 
in  the  University,  and  especially  at  Pembroke 
College,  was  the  rising  Puritanism  which  was 
teaching  men  to  live  for  things  eternal  and  fos- 
tering detachment  from  things  temporal.  Into 
this  early  and  lofty  Puritanism  Spenser  entered 
with  ardor.  We  have  seen  how  profoundly 
moral  he  always  is.  While  his  temperament  is 
unmistakably   rich   and   sensuous,   while  the 


EDMUND  SPENSER  87 

pageantry  of  the  Roman  Church  and  its  mytho- 
logical history  appealed  strongly  to  him,  still 
stronger  was  the  appeal  of  morality,  the  call  to 
organize  our  nature,  putting  certain  sides  of  it 
down  and  others  up.  This  conflict  of  flesh  and 
spirit  within  us  was  the  dominant  note  of  Puri- 
tanism. It  took  an  abiding  hold  on  beauty- 
loving  Spenser.  So  that  Milton's  adjectives  do 
not  go  astray  —  as  seldom  do  adjectives  of 
Milton's —  when  he  speaks  of  "sage  and  seri- 
ous Spenser." 

One  more  unworldly  influence,  perhaps 
underlying  the  other  two,  deserves  mention. 
At  the  University  Spenser  became  acquainted 
with  Plato,  the  father  of  all  idealists.  The 
"Symposium,"  the  "Phsedrus,"  the  "Repub- 
lic," the  "Timaeus,"  were  books  which  fed  his 
imagination.  He  accepted  whatever  he  found 
there.  Plato  removed  him  from  our  earth  and 
taught  him  to  believe  that  things  of  earth  are 
illusory;  a  faint  copy  of  "ideas"  or  "patterns'* 
of  things  eternal  in  the  heavens.  This  Platon- 
ism  pervades  Spenser  throughout  and  comes  to 
a  peculiarly  beautiful  expression  in  his  "Hymns 
in  Honor  of  Love  and  Beauty." 

(2)  Leaving  the  University  in  1570  without 
obtaining  a  fellowship  or  finding  any  secular 


88    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

position,  he  went  off  to  the  country  parts  of 
Lancashire,  from  which  section  of  England  his 
family  originally  came.  There  he  spent  a  year 
in  farm  life.  One  might  expect  such  an  experi- 
ence to  bring  Spenser  back  into  close  contact 
with  earth.  Instead,  it  intensified  his  idealism. 
His  beloved  ancients  had  a  way  of  looking  only 
on  the  pretty  side  of  farm  life,  the  shepherd 
and  his  flock  becoming  creatures  of  romance. 
Theocritus  and  Virgil  set  the  fashion  of  pas- 
toral eclogues.  Their  Italian  imitators  just 
before  Spenser's  time  followed  on.  The  pas- 
toral idealizes  the  squalid  facts  of  the  country, 
and  Spenser  turned  to  it  at  once,  almost  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  it  and  to  that  which  usu- 
ally professes  to  inspire  it,  love.  For  Spenser 
fell  in  love,  he  tells  us,  with  the  beautiful 
Rosalind  who,  hard-hearted  and  incapable  of 
foreseeing  the  glory  which  awaited  her  lover, 
rejected  him.  He  went  back  to  the  world  dis- 
appointed. Disappointment  is  about  as  con- 
stant with  Spenser  as  success  with  Chaucer. 

Gabriel  Harvey  wrote  of  a  possible  position 
in  the  train  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester.  Spenser 
returned  and  obtained  it.  And  now  begins  for 
him  that  life  of  court  and  state  to  which  he  had 
always  aspired.    He  parallels  Chaucer  once 


EDMUND  SPENSER  89 

more  in  this  that,  born  in  the  commercial  class, 
he  spends  his  life  as  a  courtier.  Yet  the  associa- 
tion with  Leicester,  promising  as  it  seemed, 
planted  permanent  seeds  of  disaster.  Burleigh, 
the  Chief  Councillor  of  Elizabeth,  was  hostile 
to  Leicester.  Consequently  again  and  again 
when  Spenser  had  hopes  of  court  favor  he 
found  himself  cut  off  as  a  dependent  of  Leices- 
ter's. During  the  years  of  his  service  with 
Leicester  in  London  he  felt  the  fascination  of 
young  Sir  Philip  Sidney  whose  character  and 
powers,  no  less  than  his  literary  idealism, 
closely  resembled  his  own.  Spenser  always  re- 
tained for  Sidney  unbounded  admiration,  in 
verse  lamenting  more  than  once  his  early 
death.  In  his  eyes,  as  in  those  of  most  men 
of  the  time,  Sidney  was  the  model  of  accom- 
plished knighthood. 

In  1580  the  lord-lieutenancy  of  Ireland  was 
given  to  the  uncle  of  Sidney,  Lord  Grey  of 
Wilton.  Spenser  had  not  succeeded  in  obtain- 
ing preferment  at  court  and  took  service  with 
Grey  as  his  secretary.  For  the  following  nine- 
teen years,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
visits  to  England,  disturbed  Ireland  was  his 
home.  The  Irish  were  at  the  time  in  active  re- 
bellion, intriguing  with  the  Spanish,  and  Grey 


90    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

was  sent  over  to  put  them  down.  England 
has  never  been  gentle  in  dealing  with  Ireland, 
but  the  methods  of  butchery  and  coloniza- 
tion employed  for  the  next  two  years  sur- 
passed all  precedent.  Spenser  took  part  in  all 
approvingly  and  no  doubt  was  able  to  draw 
from  the  experience  material  for  some  of  the  con- 
tests with  monsters  in  "The  Faerie  Queene"; 
for  we  happen  to  know  from  a  letter  of  Harvey's 
that  "The  Faerie  Queene"  was  begun  in  these 
years,  and  the  building  of  its  beauty  must  have 
been  a  welcome  relief  from  the  hideous  scenes 
then  met.  When  the  rebellion  was  officially 
ended  in  1582  and  Lord  Grey  retired,  Spenser 
remained,  holding  clerkships  in  one  part  and 
another  of  the  island  during  its  settlement  until 
(3)  in  1588  Kilcolman  Castle,  with  a  tract  of 
adjoining  country,  was  granted  him  for  his  serv- 
ices. The  castle,  which  had  belonged  to  the 
Earl  of  Desmond,  the  leader  of  the  rebellion, 
stood  on  the  bank  of  the  small  river  Mulla  in  a 
picturesque  part  of  the  county  of  Cork.  Here 
Spenser  lived  alone  in  stately  banishment, 
pressing  his  great  poem  steadily  on.  In  1589 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  visited  him  and  found  three 
Books  of  the  poem  already  finished.  He  per- 
suaded Spenser  to  accompany  him  back  to 


EDMUND  SPENSER  91 

England,  to  publish  what  he  had  written,  and 
look  for  favor  and  place  at  court.  These  earliest 
Books  were  accordingly  printed  in  London  in 
1590.  They  brought  him  praise  from  the  Queen 
and  from  the  whole  intellectual  world,  with  the 
small  pension  of  fifty  pounds.  He  returned  dis- 
appointed to  Ireland  and  wrote  his  account  of 
how  "Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again."  The 
fame,  too,  which  he  had  now  acquired  in  Lon- 
don made  a  market  for  other  works  written 
earlier.  He  put  together  two  volumes  of  short 
pieces  entitled  "Complaints"  and  "Proso- 
popoia"  and  published  them  in  1591. 

In  1594  he  married,  wrote  his  marvellous 
bridal  song,  "The  Epithalamion,"  and  pub- 
lished it  with  a  series  of  love  sonnets,  called 
"Amoretti,"  the  following  year.  From  what 
family  the  lady  came,  or  what  were  her  cir- 
cumstances, we  do  not  know.  We  only  hear 
of  her  beauty  and  refined  womanliness.  Her 
first  name  was  the  same  as  that  of  Spenser's 
mother,  Elizabeth;  her  last  name  may  have 
been  Boyle.  She  brought  him  children  and  an 
apparently  happy  home  during  their  few  years 
together.  Work  on  "The  Faerie  Queene"  pro- 
gressed so  rapidly  that  in  159G  three  more 
Books  —  hardly  equal  in  poetic  power  to  the 


92    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

first  three  —  were  ready  for  the  press.  These, 
too,  were  taken  to  London  and  again  brought 
him  praise  without  preferment.  He  returned 
once  more  to  exile,  this  time  to  destruction.  In 
1598  the  Irish  rebelHon  broke  out  anew.  No 
attempt  had  been  made  to  appease  the  country 
by  anything  except  force.  Spenser  himself  was 
known  to  have  written  a  paper  defending  the 
methods  of  Lord  Grey.  In  the  absence  of  an 
English  army,  he  found  himself  alone  among 
an  infuriated  people.  Kilcolman  Castle  was 
attacked,  plundered,  and  burned.  One  of 
Spenser's  children  perished  in  the  flames.  The 
rest  of  the  family  fled  to  London.  What  hap- 
pened there  is  uncertain.  All  we  know  is  that 
in  1599  Spenser  died  in  poverty,  Ben  Jonson 
says  "for  lack  of  bread."  Though  he  had  suf- 
fered in  a  public  cause  and  was  now  recognized 
as  the  chief  poetic  glory  of  his  age,  in  his  ex- 
treme need  he  was  left  unhonored,  deserted  by 
the  Crown.  The  Earl  of  Essex  paid  the  ex- 
penses of  his  funeral,  and  at  his  own  request  he 
was  laid  beside  Chaucer  in  Westminster  Abbey. 
Spenser's  life  was  one  long  disappointment. 
He  was  always  poor.  He  received  no  scholarly 
honor  from  his  University.  He  was  crossed  in 
love,  and  found  no  career  immediately  opening 


EDMUND  SPENSER  93 

before  him.  For  a  year  or  two  afterwards  he 
was  happy  in  the  most  exalted  and  congenial 
society  of  London,  then  for  twenty  years  was 
obliged  to  live  remote  from  friends  and  almost 
from  civilization.  He  saw  in  Ireland  military 
glory  attended  by  savagery.  In  return  for 
public  service  he  was  rewarded  with  stately 
seclusion.  He  won  enough  literary  fame  to 
prove  that  he  deserved  royal  favor  which, 
through  court  intrigue,  somehow  missed  him. 
For  five  years  he  had  a  happy  marriage,  for 
six  the  smallest  of  pensions.  A  catastrophe 
overwhelmed  him ;  he  turned  to  his  own  people 
and  met  neglect  with  early  death.  It  is  this 
afflicted  man  who  drew  from  his  creative  imag- 
ination a  new  type  of  poetry,  a  poetry  of  ex- 
quisite unreality,  a  music  so  magical  as  to  lure 
us  from  thought  and  satisfy  us  with  easeful 
dreams  of  gorgeous  pageantry.  Perhaps  the 
severities  of  his  actual  life  and  the  high  romance 
of  his  verse  are  not  unconnected. 

Spenser  probably  formed  his  plan  of  "The 
Faerie  Queene"  early  in  life.  We  know  that 
before  he  went  to  Ireland  it  was  sufficiently 
started  to  receive  Harvey's  unfavorable  criti- 
cism. According  to  "The  Letter  of  tlie 
Author's"  it  was  to  consist  of  twelve  Books. 


94    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

But  it  was  destined  to  be  another  instance  of 
Spenserian  disappointment.  Only  six  Books 
were  published  during  its  author's  life,  and  two 
Cantos  of  a  seventh  were  found  in  manuscript 
after  his  death.  Was  a  portion  burned  with  his 
castle  and  child  .^^  It  is  unlikely  that  in  the  three 
years'  interval  between  the  last  publication  and 
Spenser's  death  so  prolific  a  writer  should  have 
advanced  his  plan  by  only  about  a  thousand 
lines.  There  are  lists  of  many  other  pieces  by 
him,  known  to  his  contemporaries  and  un- 
known to  us.  But  at  least  enough  has  come 
down  to  us  to  satisfy  most  readers.  "The 
Faerie  Queene"  alone  measures  39,000  lines, 
about  four  times  "Paradise  Lost,"  twice  "The 
Ring  and  The  Book,"  and  half  as  long  again 
as  the  "Iliad"  and  "Odyssey"  together. 

Spenser's  genius  seems  to  require  space. 
He  liked  the  long  line,  the  long  stanza,  the  long 
Canto.  Neatness  and  pithy  sayings  belong  to 
a  different  type.  His  romantic  verse,  though 
called  by  himself  "historical,"  has  as  little 
relation  to  orderly  narrative  as  that  of  Ariosto 
or  Tasso  who,  he  says  in  his  "Letter,"  were  his 
models.  His  poetry  is,  like  music,  rather  an 
affair  of  sound  than  of  sense  and  contains 
within  itself  small  provision  for  limitation,  as 


EDMUND  SPENSER  95 

is  also  the  case  with  the  inordinate  works  of 
his  two  masters.  Several  English  poets  in  whom 
this  musical  ■  emphasis  is  strong,  like  Shelley 
and  Swinburne,  have  shown  a  similarly  dan- 
gerous fluency.  Only  rarely,  as  in  Milton  and 
Tennyson,  has  a  highly  sensitive  ear  been  at- 
tended by  intellectual  insistence  on  compact 
form.  Excellences  are  not  altogether  com- 
patible. We  are  wise  if  we  discern  clearly  the 
kind  offered  by  each  poet,  if  we  accept  it  grate- 
fully, and  uncomplainingly  turn  elsewhere  for 
worthy  qualities  of  a  different  type. 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

In  "The  Faerie  Queene,"  Bk.  ii,  C.  6,  well  illustrates 
Spenser's  luxuriance,  ease,  and  lulling  power.  Stanzas 
2  and  32  of  this  canto  contain  no  full  stop.  A  beautiful 
employment  of  a  single  stop  is  in  Stanza  15.  Stanza  13 
shows  a  species  of  link-verse,  where  the  close  of  one  line 
prompts  the  beginning  of  another.  The  fragmentary 
cantos  of  Bk.  vii,  "Of  Mutabilitie,"  especially  the  two 
stanzas  of  Canto  vill,  are  among  the  weightiest  ever 
written  by  Spenser.  Good  examples  of  personified  Vices 
are  Envy,  Bk.  i,  C.  4,  St.  30-33,  and  Mammon,  Bk.  ii, 
C.  7,  St.  3. 

"The  Epithalamion"  should  be  read  entire,  and  also 
the  "Hymn  in  Honor  of  Beauty,"  expressing  Spenser's 
Platonism. 

In  "  Muiopotmos,"  lines  145-208,  there  is  a  passage  in 
ottava  rima  of  peculiar  grace. 

"Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again"  has  much  bio- 
graphical material  presented  in  pastoral  form. 

As  an  example  of  Rhyme  Royal  a  single  magnificent 
stanza  of  "The  Ruins  of  Time,"  lines  246-253,  may  serve. 


IV 

George  Herbert 


4 


IV 

GEORGE  HERBERT 

We  have  now  before  us  in  clear  outline  two 
contrasted  types  of  poetry,  the  realistic  and 
the  idealistic.  All  around  us  is  a  miscellaneous 
moving  world,  and  it  will  be  one  of  the  offices 
of  poetry  to  exhibit  that  world.  The  realist 
will  therefore  make  accuracy  and  vividness  his 
tests  of  excellence  and  will  merely  inquire  how 
completely  the  men  and  women  about  him 
present  themselves  on  his  pages.  The  natural 
form  of  his  art  will  be  the  narrative.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  idealist  will  always  feel  that 
whatever  is  distinctive  of  poetry  lies  beyond 
the  actual.  The  poet's  work  is  not  reproduc- 
tion. He  should  conceive  a  more  spacious  and 
noble  world  behind  the  one  we  know.  In  nature 
there  are  no  moral  standards.  In  her,  too, 
everything  is  individual.  A  world  of  this  irra- 
tional sort  needs  to  be  allegorized.  The  poet 
should  deal  with  the  general,  especially  with 
the  worthy  and  unworthy.  Let  him  not  hesi- 
tate to  speak  of  glorious  dreams  and  stately 
impossibilities.    Everything,   in  short,   which 


102    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

will  help  to  remove  us  from  our  petty  existence 
will  be  proper  matter  for  poetry. 

Here  then  are  two  opposed  ideals.  But  how- 
ever opposed,  both  really  enter  into  all  poetry. 
To  some  extent  every  poet  is  both  a  realist  and 
an  idealist.  In  offering  a  preliminary  defini- 
tion of  poetry,  I  called  it  a  fragment  of  reality 
seen  through  a  temperament.  It  has  a  realistic 
basis  and  an  idealistic  superstructure;  and  the 
farther  it  moves  in  the  idealistic  direction,  the 
more  poetic  will  it  appear.  Rightly  is  Spenser 
counted  the  poet's  poet,  for  in  him  we  see  the 
extreme  to  which  poetic  idealism  can  be  carried. 
We  must  not  then  discharge  either  of  these 
ideals  but  may  look  to  see  them  repeated,  in 
varying  degrees  and  combinations,  throughout 
the  long  line  of  English  poetry. 

But  why  cannot  these  two  types  be  counted 
sufficient?  How  did  it  happen  that  immediately 
after  Spenser's  exquisite  work  was  completed, 
it  appeared  antiquated  and  was  succeeded 
by  a  new  and  hostile  type?  It  was  because 
poetry,  oddly  enough,  had  hitherto  overlooked 
an  important  factor  of  experience,  namely  the 
poet  himself.  Chaucer  revealed  himself  only 
incidentally  and  was  not  primarily  concerned 
with  other  persons  as  selves.    He  never  dis- 


GEORGE  HERBERT  103 

sected  motives,  studied  aspirations,  laid  bare 
the  waywardness  and  contradictions  which 
lurk  in  the  interior  of  each  of  us.  He  merely 
set  down  on  his  pages  what  can  be  externally 
observed.  Nor  did  Spenser  in  his  musical 
pageant  exhibit  his  own  soul.  Yet  that,  after 
all,  is  the  subject  which  presses  most  closely  for 
expression.  Within  himself  the  poet  might 
well  find  the  whole  material  of  his  verse,  and  to 
that  material  the  new  type  of  poetry  addresses 
itself. 

To  poetry  of  this  subjective  sort  Dr.  Johnson 
has  blunderingly  given  the  name  "metaphysi- 
cal." He  knew  little  of  philosophy,  particu- 
larly of  metaphysics,  and  probably  used  the 
word  metaphysical  merely  to  indicate  some- 
tiiing  dark  and  mysterious.  Still,  he  is  on  the 
right  track,  even  if  he  does  not  put  his  finger 
on  the  precise  point.  These  new  writers  are 
philosophic,  that  is  they  are  studying  the 
mind  of  man,  the  individual  mind.  They  seek 
to  examine  their  own  moods  and  accurately  to 
report  them.  Their  true  title  would  therefore 
be  the  psychological  poets,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  occupied  with  the  ^^vx^i  or  soul  of  man. 
But  it  is  unwise  for  a  single  writer  to  try  to 
change  the  usage  of  a  century.   Having  made 


104    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

this  protest,  I  shall  generally  employ  the  estab- 
lished designation.  It  will  be  understood  that 
the  men  we  are  now  to  consider  are  observers 
no  less  than  Chaucer,  but  observers  of  their 
inner  life.  They  watch  the  moods  which  in  the 
soberest  of  us  chase  one  another  with  bewilder- 
ing speed  and  they  record  them  with  insistent 
accuracy.  That  very  accuracy  it  is,  and  not 
vagueness,  which  makes  their  poetry  often 
difficult  to  comprehend.  I  believe  we  shall  best 
understand  their  work,  and  mark  its  contrast 
with  what  had  gone  before,  if  we  examine  the 
importance  they  attach  to  love,  religion,  and 
the  intellect. 

Of  course  love-poems  have  always  been  writ- 
ten. Love  we  might  call  the  universal  theme  of 
poetry.  Almost  all  the  motives  of  life  are 
summed  up  in  the  attempt  to  merge  one's  in- 
complete self  with  the  admired  object  of  one's 
desire.  But  the  cool  elaborate  way  in  which 
such  f orthgoing  was  treated  by  the  poets  of  this 
time  deserves  notice.  From  Petrarch's  Italy 
came  the  fashion  of  a  serial  study  of  the  stages 
in  the  advance  of  the  lover  toward  his  lady. 
Neither  she  nor  her  lover's  passion  is  shown  to 
us  as  a  whole,  but  rather  in  dissected  details. 
Successive  sonnets  disclose  the  first  approach. 


GEORGE  HERBERT  105 

the  survey  of  her  face,  the  parallehng  of  her 
beauty  with  everything  imaginable;  what  was 
the  first  bUi)d  impulse  toward  her  and  what 
the  many  subsequent  vacillations,  the  slightly 
greater  nearness  from  day  to  day,  her  general 
coldness  and  occasional  kindness,  the  lover's 
sense  of  un worthiness,  his  abasement,  despair, 
jealousy,  desolation  through  absence,  and  his 
final  unbelievable  reward. 

No  one  of  these  phases  of  love  is  unusual. 
Poets  before  and  since  the  sixteenth  century 
have  sung  them  all.  But  the  systematization 
and  conscious  analysis  of  them  became  a  set 
poetic  theme  for  the  first  time  in  England  dur- 
ing the  last  years  of  Elizabeth.  We  might 
name  that  theme  the  Lover's  Progress  and 
compare  it  with  the  standard  theme  of  paint- 
ing, the  Virgin  and  Child.  Each  new  painter 
takes  up  the  theme  of  the  Nativity  and  works 
upon  it,  regardless  of  whether  he  has  ever  felt 
sympathy  for  motherhood  or  childhood.  It  is 
a  set  pattern  which  he,  as  an  apprentice,  must 
elaborate.  Just  so  did  the  poets  accept  the 
theme  of  the  Lover's  Progress,  which  had  trav- 
elled from  Italy  through  France  to  a  rather 
belated  arrival  in  England.  Of  course  it  was 
not  exactly  the  Petrarchan  series  of  sonnets 


106    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  was  reproduced  in  England;  but  it  was  at 
least  "an  echo  of  it  in  the  north  wind  sung." 
Sidney  first  called  attention  to  the  great  theme. 
In  his  magnificent  series  of  sonnets  to  Stella 
all  the  stages  of  love's  course  are  worked  out 
in  detail.  The  only  point,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in 
which  the  Stella  series  differs  from  the  many 
which  followed  it  is  its  particularity.  Sonnet 
after  sonnet  in  this  series  strikes  one  as  pro- 
ceeding from  that  individual  person,  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  as  relating  to  Penelope  Devereux,  and 
as  inapplicable  to  any  other  pair. 

Now,  that  is  not  the  case  in  the  great  mass 
of  love-sonnets  produced  in  England  at  this 
time.  Between  1591  and  1597  Sir  Sidney  Lee 
calculates  that  more  than  two  thousand  ap- 
peared, usually  in  groups.  But  there  is  httle 
in  them  that  is  specific.  For  the  most  part  they 
show  no  ardent  passion  in  him  who  writes. 
They  are  literary  exercises  on  a  conventional 
theme.  We  have  seen  how  it  is  the  tendency  of 
all  idealistic  work  which  falls  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Spenser  to  deal  with  the  general.  But 
will  men  be  contented  to  continue  such  an 
artificial  method,  to  go  on  reporting  the  most 
vital  of  our  passions  in  a  standardized  way? 
Will  not  some  one  arise  to  shatter  the  decorous 


GEORGE  HERBERT  107 

exhibit  and  set  down  the  facts  of  his  passionate 
experience  in  all  their  tumultuous  reality? 
That  was  to  be  the  work  of  John  Donne,  to 
tell  of  human  moods  as  they  veritably  exist. 
He  approaches  love  from  a  point  of  view  op- 
posed to  that  of  Spenser.  For  Spenser  himself 
produced  a  sonnet  sequence,  the  "Amoretti," 
of  precisely  the  regular  pattern.  Smoothly 
and  pleasingly  the  verses  run,  with  no  indica- 
tion of  individual  character  or  individual  ardor. 
But  Donne,  not  only  in  sonnets,  but  in  lyrics 
of  wide  variety,  pours  forth  his  emotion  with 
barbaric  frankness.  Naturally  when  one  under- 
takes to  paint  passion  in  the  precise  color  of 
individual  experience  he  may  be  pushed  far 
toward  coarseness.  Donne  does  not  hesitate. 
His  is  a  complex  nature,  involving  all  that 
characterized  the  later  Renaissance  —  its  au- 
dacity, its  mystic  piety,  its  forceful  intellec- 
tualism,  its  love  of  adventure,  and  of  all  that 
is  bizarre. 

Here  then  we  see  a  conception  of  love 
antagonistic  to  the  generalities  of  Spenser  and 
the  fashionable  sonnetteers,  one  absorbed  in 
individual  experience.  Such  a  change  does  not 
come  on  a  sudden.  The  germs  of  it  have  long 
been   working  in  England.    The  drama  has 


108    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

arisen,  in  which  characters  present  themselves 
contrasted  with  one  another,  not  in  the  Chau- 
cerian way  by  mere  diversity  of  outward  con- 
duct. In  the  drama  is  heard  the  clash  of  inner 
motives.  We  see  one  man  stirred  by  influences 
which  do  not  appeal  to  another. 

About  the  same  time  too  a  second  influence 
appeared  in  England  emphasizing  still  more 
strongly  the  worth  of  the  personal  life.  A  new 
religious  spirit  was  abroad.  We  have  seen  how 
the  Lollards  under  Wiclif  shook  the  kingdom 
in  the  age  of  Chaucer.  More  penetrating  still 
was  the  influence  of  Puritanism.  We  must  not 
think  of  this  as  the  doctrine  of  a  group  of  sec- 
taries, split  from  the  Established  Church.  At 
this  time  it  affected  the  whole  body  of  the  peo- 
ple, appealing  to  men  about  in  proportion  as 
they  were  persons  of  large  mind  and  devout 
spirit.  The  essence  of  Puritanism  is  this:  it 
insists  on  the  presence  of  the  individual  soul 
before  its  maker.  To  God  alone  I  am  respon- 
sible; to  no  one  else.  To  the  state?  It  is  some- 
thing external.  My  neighbor's  welfare?  Not 
primarily.  Each  is  accountable  for  his  own 
soul.  By  what  I  am  in  myself  I  stand  or  fall. 

Now,  certainly  religion  was  not  born  with 
Puritanism,  nor  has  it  ever  been  confined  to 


GEORGE  HERBERT  109 

these  limits.  The  Catholic  Church  in  England 
was  for  ages  the  guardian  of  duty,  devoutness, 
and  learnings  In  Spenser  we  see  how  large  a 
portion  of  the  field  of  religion  may  be  included 
within  Protestant,  but  not  Puritan,  bounds. 
Spenser  felt  allegiance  to  the  Queen,  to  his 
country,  to  chivalry,  to  his  own  honor.  But 
has  he  ever  expressed  a  sense  of  his  personal 
tie  with  God?  No,  for  him  religion  was  not  so 
much  an  individual  as  a  social  affair,  expressing 
the  union^  of  all  God's  people  in  common  en- 
deavors, in  arduous  and  beautiful  aims.  The 
Puritan  conceives  something  different  from 
this  and  something  more  fundamental,  how- 
ever one-sided.  His  is  a  personal  religion.  He 
hears  a  call  of  God  within  his  own  soul.  It  is  a 
strangely  paradoxical  call,  for  it  summons  us 
to  lay  aside  our  own  will  and  let  the  will  of  God 
possess  us.  We  are  incomprehensibly  to  lose 
ourselves  in  Him.  Yet  only  by  doing  so  do  we 
realize  ourselves.  When  one  first  hears  of  that 
arrest  of  the  individual  will  which  Puritanism 
demands  one  might  naturally  suppose  the 
Puritans  would  be  a  feeble  folk,  lacking  in  the 
energy  necessary  for  practical  life.  Cromwell's 
Ironsides  refute  that  fancy.  The  subordination 
of  the  individual  will  puts  one  on  the  path  of 


110    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

power.  When  I  reflect  on  what  I  am,  I  see  that 
I  am  I  only  in  so  far  as  I  go  forth  to  join  what 
is  beyond  me.  Then  I  become  somewhat; 
otherwise,  my  life  is  fragmentary  and  feeble. 
Evidently  then  love  and  religion  are  hardly  to 
be  distinguished.  Just  as  the  lover  wishes  to 
empty  himself  of  all  that  is  his  and  merge  him- 
self fully  with  the  loved  one,  so  the  soul  in  the 
presence  of  God,  feeling  its  smallness,  seeks  to 
detach  itself  from  its  own  will  and  fill  itself 
with  the  will  of  God.  Religion  is  only  love  on  a 
large  scale. 

If  comprehending  these  matters  of  inward 
experience  is  difficult  for  ourselves,  how  greatly 
the  difficulty  is  increased  when  we  try  to  ex- 
press them  to  others.  Each  of  us  is  a  unique 
personality.  What  is  going  on  in  me  now  is 
going  on  in  none  of  my  readers,  probably  has 
never  gone  on  before.  Could  I  then  report  my 
present  mood  with  exactitude,  it  would  not 
repeat  itself  in  my  reader's  mind.  To  under- 
stand it,  he  would  need  to  depart  from  his  own 
experience  and  enter  imaginatively  into  another 
life.  No  wonder  then  the  psychological  poets 
are  thought  to  express  themselves  darkly. 
Their  task  is  a  far  harder  one  than  that  of  those 
whose  graceful  verse  offers  a  general  beauty 


GEORGE  HERBERT  111 

to  all  who  read.  These  men  would  get  the 
mood  of  their  unique  souls  transferred  with 
utmost  precision  to  other  minds.  But  love  and 
religion,  their  themes,  are  not  fitted  for  such 
transfer.  They  are  specific,  individual,  inca- 
pable of  common  report.  To  accomplish  any- 
tliing  one  must  use  comparisons,  find  analogies 
and,  searching  through  all  the  world,  piece  out 
one  partial  illustration  by  another.  He  who 
would  comprehend  such  verse  must  indeed  be 
of  an  energetic  temper. 

Naturally,  then,  a  new  attitude  is  taken  by 
these  psychological  poets  toward  the  intellect. 
We  have  seen  how  slight  is  Spenser's  intellec- 
tual appeal.  He  would  hypnotize  us,  throw  us 
into  a  condition  where  we  cease  to  think  and 
are  merely  lulled  into  some  general  mood  as 
appropriate  to  one  man  as  to  another.  With 
him  poetry  goes  far  toward  music,  becoming 
inarticulate,  unindividual.  Donne  and  his  fol- 
lowers revolt  against  all  this.  They  are  stout 
individualists  and  delight  in  snubbing  this 
mystical  view  of  verse  witli  harsh  sounds  and 
crabbed  intellectualities.  They  delight  in 
tliinking  and  force  us  to  think.  Novelty,  fresh- 
ness, surprise  —  yes,  difficulty  itself  —  is  val- 
ued by  tlie  psychological  poet.  He  wanders  far 


112    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

in  search  of  strange  means  for  interpreting  his 
strange  soul. 

Such  is  the  new  type  of  poetry,  a  poetry  of  the 
inner  Ufe,  veracious,  intellectual,  individualistic, 
energetic.  By  it  an  important  range  of  emotion 
is  opened  to  English  expression  which  had  hith- 
erto passed  unobserved.  Rightly  too  does  it 
choose  its  means  and  set  them  in  antithesis  to 
those  of  Spenser.  His  "Hnked  sweetness  long 
drawn  out"  it  puts  away.  Music  is  felt  to  be 
dangerous.  The  new  verse  is  rugged  and  jar- 
ring. Instead  of  Spenser's  inwoven  sentence, 
knitted  together  with  antique  words  and  per- 
fumed with  magical  associations,  it  uses  a 
rough  language  of  hints,  ejaculations  and  irreg- 
ular constructions,  where  words  of  the  day  are 
brought  into  service,  though  often  with  novel 
meanings.  A  poem  seems  intended  rather  for 
the  writer  than  the  reader.  Force  is  sought, 
not  elegance.  Precision  is  prized,  but  ingenuity 
also.  If  we  attempt  to  run  rapidly  through  half 
a  dozen  lines,  some  intellectual  puzzle  is  pretty 
sure  to  block  our  way.  Alliteration  and  tone 
color  are  not  much  regarded.  They  are  sen- 
suous affairs,  useful  chiefly  for  impressing  a 
reader.  Puns,  conceits,  far  fetched  relation- 
ships of  thought,  unusual  metres,  indicate  the 


GEORGE  HERBERT  113 

alertness  of  the  writer's  mind.  And  these  char- 
acteristics of  the  metaphysical  poets  are  by  no 
means  accidental.  They  spring  directly  from 
their  realistic  individual  aim. 

Who  are  these  men?  Donne,  Herbert, 
Vaughan,  Crashaw,  Quarles,  Traheme,  per- 
haps Cowley.  Each  one  of  them  varies  the 
characteristics  I  have  named,  emphasizing 
some,  subordinating  others;  but  all,  according 
to  their  several  aptitudes,  join  in  developing  a 
type  of  poetry  which  ever  since  has  been  among 
the  precious  possessions  of  our  literature  and 
has  been  reproduced  in  almost  every  age. 

If  I  were  quite  free  in  bringing  this  new 
poetry  before  my  readers,  I  should  naturally 
choose  John  Donne  as  its  representative.  He 
is  the  originator  of  the  school  and  its  greatest 
genius.  Through  all  its  members  we  trace  his 
influence.  But  I  turn  from  him  to  his  pupil, 
George  Herbert,  for  two  reasons:  first,  the  per- 
sonal one,  that,  bearing  Herbert's  name,  I 
have  had  him  as  a  companion  throughout  my 
life  and  have  studied  him  elaborately;  and 
secondly,  that  I  despair  of  making  Donne 
intelligible  within  any  brief  compass.  He  is 
probably  the  most  difficult  writer  in  the  Eng- 
hsh  language.  All  the  perplexing  tendencies  of 


114    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

his  group  he  shows  in   extreme  form.    His 
strange  verses  were  not  made  to  be  listened  to 
or  hastily  caught  from  an  interpreter.    They 
require  at  least  three  readings  before  they  can 
be  understood.    To  get  their  intimate  charm 
we  must  brood  over  them,  and  even  commit 
them  to  memory.  Herbert's  nature  is  less  com- 
plicated and  the  range  of  his  verse  narrower. 
It  deals  exclusively   with  religious   love  and 
attacks  the  lower  outbursts  of  passion  so  fre- 
quent in  Donne.  In  one  respect  he  differs  from 
all  the  other  members  of  his  group.    He  is  a 
conscious   artist  and   has  a  strong  sense  of 
orderly  poetic  form.    His  small  body  of  verse 
he  revised  continually,  in  order  to  bring  it  to 
that  beauty  which  he  loved  and  which  he  felt 
its  subject  to  demand.    Yet,  notwithstanding 
superior  technical  excellence,  he  fully  repre- 
sents  most  of   the  tendencies  of   the  meta- 
physical school.   He  has  their  aggressive  intel- 
lectualism,    their    audacity    of    diction,    their 
absorption  in  the  inner  life,  thorough-going 
individualism,  wide-ranging  allusion,  candor, 
exactitude,  and  tenderness.    With  Donne  his 
relations  were  close.    A  personal  connection 
between  them  had  been  formed  while  Herbert 
was  a  mere  boy,  and  the  influence  of  the  older 


J 


GEORGE  HERBERT  115 

man  attended  Herbert  throughout  life.  If  we 
knew  of  no  personal  contact  of  the  two,  but, 
being  acquainted  with  Donne's  verse  should 
open  a  volume  of  Herbert's,  we  should  at  once 
recognize  the  master's  guiding  hand.  I  select 
then  the  more  readily  accessible  Herbert  as 
my  representative  of  this  type. 

His  life  ran  from  1593  to  1633;  that  is,  he 
was  bom  almost  exactly  a  century  after  the 
discovery  of  America.  His  period  is  probably 
the  most  markedly  transitional  in  all  English 
poetry:  he  being  born  as  the  first  Books  of 
"The  Faerie  Queene"  appeared,  when  Shak- 
spere  was  writing  his  poems  and  earliest  plays, 
and  dying  in  the  year  when  Dryden,  Locke, 
and  Spinoza  were  bom.  The  brief  span  of  his 
life,  that  is,  extends  from  the  days  of  the  high- 
est romance  our  literature  ever  knew  to  the 
beginning  of  the  era  of  common  sense.  His, 
too,  was  a  contentious  time.  Individualism  was 
coming  in  like  a  flood  and  pushing  aside  the 
earlier  chivalric  collectivism.  The  Puritan 
ascendancy  was  gaining  every  year  and  deeply 
affecting  literature. 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  Herbert  as  an  aged 
saint,  who  spent  a  lii'eliiiie  in  the  courts  of  the 
Lord,  and  came  to  find  every  worldly  thought 


116    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

repulsive.  This  absurd  estimate  has  largely 
been  induced  by  Walton's  charming  romance. 
Biography  was  at  that  time  in  its  infancy,  and 
the  few  examples  of  it  that  occur  aim  at  eulogy 
and  stimulus  rather  than  description.  To  com- 
prehend the  man  Herbert,  all  these  romantic 
notions  must  be  dismissed.  He  died  compara- 
tively young,  just  under  forty.  Most  of  his 
life  was  spent  in  courts,  universities,  and 
among  the  most  eminent  and  fashionable  of  his 
time.  During  only  three  years  was  he  a  priest. 
Unfortunately  the  romantic  view  of  him  has 
gained  currency,  too,  through  an  adjective 
which  early  became  attached  to  his  name, 
^'holy  George  Herbert."  That  is  exactly  what 
Herbert  was  not.  A  holy  man  is  a  whole  man, 
one  who  is  altogether  in  harmony  with  himself 
and  God.  Herbert's  was  a  divided  nature. 
Opposing  impulses  tore  him.  It  is  these  which 
bring  him  near  to  us  and  make  him  a  true  repre- 
sentative of  psychological  poetry.  When  he 
was  dying,  he  handed  over  the  meagre  roll  of 
his  poems  to  a  friend  —  for  none  were  pub- 
lished during  his  life.  All  are  private  poems, 
stamped  with  that  genuine  sincerity  which 
can  be  had  only  in  writings  not  intended  for 
the  pubhc  eye —  and  said,  "Here  is  a  record 


GEORGE  HERBERT  117 

oi  the  many  spiritual  conflicts  that  have  passed 
betwixt  God  and  my  soul.  Let  my  friend  Mr. 
Ferrar  read  it;  and  then  if  he  can  think  it  may 
turn  to  the  advantage  of  any  dejected  poor 
soul,  let  it  be  made  public;  if  not,  let  him  burn 
it."  Mr.  Ferrar  fortunately  published  it  imme- 
diately, and  it  so  exactly  hit  the  taste  of  its 
time  that  a  dozen  editions  were  called  for  in 
half  a  century.  We  shall  do  it  and  its  author 
much  injustice  if  we  withdraw  our  attention 
from  those  "Conflicts." 

The  life  of  Herbert  is  most  significantly 
divided  into  four  periods:  that  of  education, 
of  hesitation,  of  crisis,  and  of  consecration. 
The  period  of  education  covers  the  first  twenty- 
six  years  of  his  life,  from  his  bh-th  in  1593  to  his 
acceptance  of  the  Oratorship  at  Cambridge  in 
1619.  The  second,  the  period  of  hesitation, 
covers  his  Oratorship;  that  is,  eight  years,  up 
to  the  death  of  his  mother  in  1627.  A  crisis 
period  follows,  in  which  Herbert  was  surveying 
himself  and  asking  whether  his  life  was  to  be 
wasted.  This  continued  for  three  years,  from 
1627  to  1630.  Then  comes  at  last  the  glorious 
period  of  his  consecration,  his  period  as  a  priest. 
Obviously  these  periods  are  very  unequal,  yet 
each  makes  its  special  contribution  to  our 
understanding  of  him. 


118    F0R:MATIVE  types  in  ENGLISH  POETRY 

His  family  was  one  of  the  noblest  in  Eng- 
land. Three  earldoms  were  in  it,  the  head  of 
the  whole  clan  being  that  "William  Herbert, 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  who  was  one  of  the  most 
influential  nobles  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  and  during  the  reign  of  James. 
Herbert  always  prided  himself  on  his  aristo- 
cratic birth.  The  exquisite  gentleman  appears 
in  him  everywhere,  both  for  strength  and  weak- 
ness. His  father,  belonging  to  the  branch  of 
the  Herbert  family  which  lived  at  Montgom- 
ery Castle  in  Wales,  died  when  George  was 
but  four  years  old,  and  Lady  Herbert  became 
both  father  and  mother  to  him.  She  was  one 
of  the  masterful  women  of  that  age  and  one  of 
the  most  admired.  A  dozen  years  after  the 
death  of  her  husband,  though  she  had  already 
ten  children,  she  married  Sir  John  Danvers,  a 
man  twenty  years  her  junior.  Nor  was  the 
marriage  unhappy.  Sir  John  Danvers  was 
accordingly  the  only  father  Herbert  ever  knew, 
except  his  spiritual  father,  Donne.  Donne  and 
his  large  family  had  been  assisted  by  Lady 
Herbert  at  a  critical  period  of  his  life.  Grati- 
tude and  kindred  tastes  drew  him  to  her  subse- 
quently, and  at  least  three  poems  of  his  ad- 
dressed to  her  have  come  down  to  us.    Her 


GEORGE  HERBERT  119 

poetic  son  thus  early  felt  Donne's  influence.  To 
George  Herbert  Donne  bequeathed  his  seal  ring. 

Herbert's  position  in  life  put  him  in  the  way 
of  meeting  many  others  who  were  then  emi- 
nent in  literature  and  the  State.  William  Her- 
bert, the  head  of  his  house,  has  been  believed 
by  many  to  be  the  mysterious  "Mr.  W.  H."  to 
whom  Shakspere's  Sonnets  are  inscribed.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  to  him  that  the  first  folio  of  Shak- 
spere's plays  is  dedicated.  Possibly,  therefore, 
Herbert  may  have  seen  Shakspere.  While  he 
was  Orator  at  the  University  Milton  was  a 
student  there.  When  Lord  Bacon  in  1625 
published  certain  Psalms  which  he  had  trans- 
lated into  verse,  he  dedicated  them  to  Herbert 
as  the  first  of  his  time  "in  respect  of  divinity 
and  poesy  met." 

Leaving  Westminster  School  in  London  in 
1610,  Herbert  entered  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge. The  same  year,  he  being  at  the  time 
seventeen,  he  addressed  two  sonnets  to  his 
mother  which  are  of  extreme  significance.  In 
them  and  an  accompanying  letter  he  lays 
down  a  programme  for  his  life.  He  will  become 
a  poet,  a  poet  of  love.  That  is  the  only  worthy 
theme,  he  declares.  But  he  will  be  nothing 
like  the  fashionable  poets.    They   have  de- 


120    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRl 

graded  the  sacred  passion,  "parcelling  it  out" 
to  one  and  another  person.  That  is  to  empty 
love  of  all  meaning.  The  only  way  in  which  it 
can  be  understood  is  to  view  it  in  full  scale, 
drawing  God  and  the  human  soul  together. 
Herbert  will  therefore  write  nothing  but  reli- 
gious verse  and  so  will  manifest  love  unlimited. 
With  this  purpose  Herbert  went  up  to  the  Uni- 
versity. To  that  purpose  he  remained  true, 
becoming  —  if  we  except  Robert  Southwell  — 
our  first  purely  religious  poet. 

One  other  aim  Herbert  had  for  shaping  his 
life,  and  long  was  the  shaping  deferred.  From 
birth  he  was  physically  weak,  with  a  tendency 
to  consumption.  His  brothers  were  martial 
men,  and  this  was  the  general  inheritance  of 
the  family.  His  eldest  brother,  Edward,  was 
that  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  the  founder 
of  English  deism,  the  eccentric  soldier,  ambas- 
sador, duellist,  egotist,  who  wrote  one  of  the 
most  entertaining  of  autobiographies.  Two 
other  brothers  were  officers  in  the  army  and 
navy;  Henry,  nearest  in  age  to  George,  and 
perhaps  his  favorite,  was  Master  of  Revels  at 
the  Court.  One  born  in  such  station  found  few 
employments  open.  He  could  not  engage  in 
trade.    He  must  enter  either  the  army,  the 


GEORGE  HERBERT  121 

Church,  or  the  Civil  Service.  Herbert's  mother 
early  saw  that  he  was  of  too  feeble  a  frame  to 
serve  in  the  army  or  probably  in  the  State. 
She  dedicated  him,  therefore,  to  the  Church. 
Herbert  accepted  the  proposed  career  without 
question,  and  soon  an  association  of  ideas  be- 
came fixed  in  his  mind,  uniting  the  thought  of 
being  a  priest  with  that  of  being  an  upright 
man.  Whenever  secular  affairs  interested  him, 
as  they  naturally  did  through  most  of  his  life, 
he  counted  himself  cut  off  from  God.  When- 
ever higher  moods  were  on,  he  was  all  eager 
for  the  priesthood. 

He  took  his  Bachelor's  degree  when  he  was 
twenty  and  remained  at  the  University  to 
study  divinity.  Being,  however,  already  noted 
as  something  of  a  connoisseur  in  words,  and 
skilled  in  Latin  and  Greek  as  well  as  English, 
he  undertook  also  some  teaching  in  rhetoric. 
In  these  pleasant  employments  and  agreeable 
surroundings  year  by  year  went  by  and  brought 
him  no  nearer  to  the  priesthood.  Finally  the 
Oratorship  of  the  University  fell  vacant.  In  it 
Herbert  saw  something  much  to  his  liking. 
He  aspired  to  it.  Fortunately  we  have  a  letter 
from  him  replying  to  a  question  a  friend  had 
asked,  whether  the  Oratorship  was  quite  com- 


122    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

patible  with  aiming  at  the  priesthood.  He 
thinks  it  is,  for  it  only  defers  that  purpose  a 
httle;  and  besides,  the  Oratorship  is  the  finest 
post  in  the  University.  The  Orator  sits  above 
everybody  at  table,  receives  all  distinguished 
visitors,  writes  the  letters  of  the  University, 
and  has  in  addition  a  very  pretty  salary. 

He  received  the  appointment  in  1619  and 
held  the  office  for  eight  years.  The  suspended 
section  of  Herbert's  life  which  follows  I  have 
called  his  period  of  hesitation.  In  it  his  double- 
mindedness  is  striking.  Certainly  he  will  be  a 
priest.  He  has  never  intended  anything  else, 
a  priest  and  a  poet.  But  hurry?  Why  should 
one  hasten  such  a  career?  There  are  many 
good  things  by  the  way.  Even  Walton  records 
that  during  his  oratorship  "he  was  seldom  at 
Cambridge  unless  the  King  was  there,  and  then 
he  never  missed."  Herbert  loves  stately  cere- 
monials, fine  clothes  and  manners,  whatever 
of  beauty  the  world  can  show.  That  is  one  side 
of  him.  He  is  a  man  of  the  Renaissance,  sensi- 
tive to  all  the  glories  of  earth  and  exulting  in 
them.  But  there  is  another  side,  just  as  genu- 
ine. When  we  notice  the  strength  of  one  of 
these  two  sides  of  Herbert,  we  are  apt  to  imag- 
ine the  other  feeble  or  unreal.  That  is  not  the 


GEORGE  HERBERT  123 

case.  It  is  to  misunderstand  Herbert  as  a  man, 
and  quite  to  miss  the  type  of  his  poetry  of  the 
inner  life,  if  We  fail  to  give  credit  to  discordant 
elements  in  him.  His  purpose  of  allegiance  to 
God,  taking  the  form  of  entering  the  priest- 
hood, is  a  positive  passion,  however  long  he 
loiters  by  the  way. 

In  1625  King  James  died.  Herbert  had 
hoped  to  climb,  like  the  preceding  Orator,  into 
some  public  office.  He  dreamed  of  becoming 
Assistant  Secretary  of  State.  The  King's  death 
destroyed  these  hopes.  A  year  later  Bacon 
died.  Worse  still,  in  1627  died  that  mother 
who  had  never  ceased  to  guide  him,  who  had 
fixed  the  plan  of  his  life,  and  had  not  seen  that 
plan  fulfilled.  Herbert  was  overwhelmed.  His 
health  was  poor  at  the  time,  and  mental  con- 
flicts made  it  worse.  He  resigned  the  Orator- 
ship,  left  the  University  where  he  had  lived  for 
seventeen  years,  retired  to  his  brother  Henry's 
country  home,  and  there  passed  through  what 
I  have  called  his  "crisis." 

A  record  of  this  crisis  he  has  left  us.  Life 
was  slipping  away,  with  nothing  accomplished. 
How  was  it  all  to  end?  In  a  single  section  of  my 
edition  of  his  poems  I  have  brought  together 
the  pathetic  group  of  those  tliat  paint  this 


124    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

struggle.  We  hear  him  now  expressing  delight 
in  the  world  and  asking  how  he  can  possibly 
leave  it,  now  pouring  forth  eager  longings  to 
be  fully  a  child  of  God,  now  doubting  his  fit- 
ness for  that  exalted  life.  After  two  or  three 
years  of  this  self-scrutiny,  search  for  health, 
and  efforts  to  reinstate  his  early  resolve,  he  met 
Jane  Danvers  and  married  her,  Walton  says, 
three  days  after  t^eir  first  meeting.  I  question 
the  tale,  for  she  was  a  near  relative  of  Herbert's 
stepfather  and  lived  but  a  few  miles  from  his 
brother's  house.  Yet  even  if  the  story  is  in- 
exact, it  well  illustrates  Herbert's  headlong 
temper.  He  says  himself  that  people  "think 
me  eager,  hot,  and  undertaking.  But  in  my 
prosecutions  slack  and  small."  We  may  per- 
haps say  that  he  was  of  so  hesitating  a  disposi- 
tion, so  prone  to  delay,  that  finally  he  would 
act  on  some  small  impulse,  and  suddenly  im- 
portant issues  would  be  closed.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  at  last  he  entered  the  priesthood. 
The  Earl  of  Pembroke  invited  him  to  Wilton 
House  to  meet  Archbishop  Laud,  who  was  at 
the  time  a  visitor  there.  Laud  remonstrated 
with  him  over  his  long  delay.  Walton  says 
Herbert  sent  for  a  tailor  the  next  day  and  was 
measured  for  his  canonical  clothes. 


GEORGE  HERBERT  125 

Herbert  entered  the  priesthood  in  1630,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-seven,  and  spent  in  it  the  last 
three  years  of  his  brief  life.  At  first  he  found 
great  happiness  in  it.  He  had  at  length  made 
a  reality  of  a  lifelong  dream.  There  could  be 
no  more  discontent.  He  might  now  possess  a 
united  mind.  But  the  little  parish  which  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke  gave  him  at  Bemerton,  be- 
tween Wilton  and  Salisbury,  contained  only 
a  hundred  and  twenty  people,  men,  women  and 
children.  For  many  years  Herbert  had  been 
living  in  the  full  tide  of  the  bustling  world,  with 
the  most  intellectual  men  of  that  world  as  his 
companions.  Now  he  found  himself  shut  up 
to  a  small  group  of  illiterate  rustics.  He  tried 
to  develop  all  the  possibilities  of  his  oflBce,  and 
in  his  beautiful  notebook,  "A  Priest  to  the 
Temple,"  has  left  an  elaborate  study  of  what 
the  country  parson  can  do  and  be.  He  kept 
his  intellectual  interests  alive  with  this  book, 
with  writing  far  more  verse  than  formerly, 
and  with  frequent  visits  to  the  organ  in  Salis- 
bury Cathedral.  But  after  all,  he  could  not 
help  wondering  whether  such  a  life  was  what 
God  and  he  had  intended.  This  disposition 
to  doubt  was  much  increased  as  consumption 
pressed  him  harder.  Of  this  disease  he  died  in 


126    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

1633.  Had  he  died  three  years  earlier,  we 
should  never  have  known  him,  or  at  most 
should  have  found  his  name  mentioned  some- 
where as  that  of  an  elegant  dilettante  from 
whom  contemporaries  expected  much,  but  who 
left  only  a  dozen  or  more  Latin  and  Greek 
pieces  of  slender  merit  and  a  few  English  verses 
on  ecclesiastical  subjects.  It  is  chiefly  Bemer- 
ton  with  its  enforced  loneliness,  questionings, 
revolts,  and  visions  of  completed  love  which 
made  Herbert  an  example  of  all  that  is  best  in 
the  metaphysical  poetry  of  the  inner  life.  In 
three  poems — the  long  "Affliction,"  "Love 
Unknown,"  and  "The  Pilgrimage" —  Herbert 
traces  at  different  periods  the  course  of  his 
infirm  and  disappointed  life.  The  shortest  of 
them,  and  perhaps  the  obscurest,  written  near 
its  end,  is  the  most  fully  confessional  and 
poignant. 

It  will  be  seen  how  truly  such  a  divided  and 
introspective  life  typifies  the  age  which  pro- 
duced it.  Donne  and  his  followers  are  no  acci- 
dent. They  sum  up  in  artistic  form  the  ques- 
tioning tendencies  of  their  time.  In  few  other 
periods  of  English  history  has  the  English 
people  believed,  acted,  enjoyed  and  aspired  so 
nearly  like  a  single  person  as  during  the  first 


GEORGE  HERBERT  127 

three  quarters  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  For- 
eign dangers  welded  the  nation  together.  The 
Queen,  her  great  ministers,  and  the  historical 
plays  of  Shakspere,  set  forth  its  ideals  of  orderly 
government.  Spenser's  poem  consummated  its 
ideals  of  orderly  beauty,  as  did  Hooker's 
"Ecclesiastical  Polity"  those  of  an  orderly 
Church.  Men  in  those  days  marched  together. 
Dissenters,  either  of  a  religious,  political,  or 
artistic  sort,  were  few  and  despised.  But  with 
the  Stuart  line  a  change,  long  preparing,  mani- 
fested itself.  In  science,  Bacon  questioned 
established  authority  and  sent  men  to  nature 
to  observe  for  themselves.  In  government, 
the  King's  prerogative  was  questioned,  and 
Parliament  became  so  rebellious  that  they 
were  often  dismissed.  A  revolution  in  poetic 
taste  was  under  way.  Spenser's  smooth  strains 
and  bloodless  heroes  were  being  replaced  by 
the  jolting  and  passionate  realism  of  Donne. 
The  field  of  human  interest,  in  short,  was  be- 
coming more  and  more  an  internal  one;  the 
individual  soul  and  its  analysis  calling  for  much 
attention  from  its  anxious  possessor. 

In  choosing  Herbert  to  represent  this  intro- 
spective poetry  we  nmst  acknowledge  that  he 
stands  outside  his   school   in   one   important 


128    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

respect,  in  orderliness  and  brevity.  No  other 
member  of  his  group  has  his  artistic  feehng. 
Their  poems  are  usually  a  tangled  growth, 
developed  rather  to  ease  the  unrest  of  the 
writer  than  to  convey  objects  of  beauty  to  a 
reader.  Some  promising  situation  attracts  the-^  -T 
poet's  attention  and  he  begins  to  write,  wan-  (^ 
dering  wherever  thought  or  a  good  phrase  U 

leads,  playing  about  his  subject  till  he  and  his 
readers  have  had  enough.  Beginning  any- 
where, he  ends  nowhere.  Where,  too,  no  plan  I 
controls,  there  is  Ukely  to  be  excessive  length. 
From  such  formless  composition  Herbert  turns 
away.  All  his  work  has  structural  unity.  He 
knows  when  to  stop.  Each  poem  presents  a 
single  mood,  relation,  or  problem  of  divine 
love,  and  ends  with  its  clear  exposition.  His 
poems  are  at  once  short  and  adequate.  Out  of 
his  hundred  and  sixty-nine  nearly  a  hundred 
have  less  than  twenty-five  lines  each ;  only  four 
exceed  one  hundred  and  fifty.  Within  these 
narrow  bounds  the  theme  is  fully  and  economic- 
ally developed.  We  feel  it  is  not  he  who  directs 
its  course;  he  is  merely  responsive  to  the  shap- 
ing subject.  Accordingly  any  set  of  Herbert's 
verses  conveys  such  singleness  of  impression 
as  is  rarely  found  among  his  contemporaries. 


GEORGE  HERBERT  120 

But  while  he  thus  lacks  one  common,  though 
undesirable,  trait  of  his  school,  he  may  well 
serve  as  its  representative.  Like  the  rest  of 
them,  he  fixes  his  gaze  on  himself  alone  and 
introspects  the  working  of  a  single  soul.  Like 
them  he  finds  complications  and  paradoxes 
there  and  amuses  himself  with  them,  while  still 
retaining  our  belief  in  his  sincerity'  and  earnest- 
ness. With  him  as  with  them  energetic  and 
unusual  thought  is  a  delight,  and  nothing 
pleases  him  more  than  to  stuff  words  with  a 
little  more  meaning  than  they  can  bear.  And 
like  them  he  surprises  his  reader  with  sudden 
turns  of  sweet  and  tender  simplicity,  imbedded 
in  a  crabbed  context. 

In  technical  matters,  too,  he  is  substantially 
in  accord  with  them.  While  all  his  lines  are 
rhymed,  he  employs  imperfect  rhymes  freely, 
alliteration  and  vowel  color  rarely.  His  work- 
ing foot  is  the  iambic,  in  which  rhythm  all  but 
eleven  of  his  poems  are  written,  these  eleven 
being  trochaic.  He  has  no  blank  verse,  Alex- 
andrine, or  "fourteener."  He  has  seventeen 
sonnets,  but  confines  himself  to  the  Shak- 
sperean  form  or  to  one  peculiar  to  himself.  He 
does  not  use  Spenser's  stanza  nor  Chaucer's 
Rhyme  Royal.  His  feeling  for  the  texture  of  a 


130    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

line  is  much  finer  than  that  of  his  master,  of 
whom  Ben  Jonson  said  to  Drummond  that 
"for  not  keeping  of  accent  Donne  deserved 
hanging."  For  each  lyrical  situation  he  in- 
vents exactly  the  rhythmic  setting  which  befits 
it.  Each  set  of  emotions  he  clothes  in  individual 
garb,  and  only  when  what  is  beneath  is  similar 
is  the  same  clothing  used  a  second  time.  One 
hundred  and  sixteen  of  his  poems  are  written 
in  metres  which  are  not  repeated.  In  his  verse 
matter  and  form  are  bound  together  with 
exceptional  closeness. 

So  much  has  been  said  in  this  chapter  about 
Herbert  as  a  poet  of  the  personal  life  and  of  his 
agreement  with  his  group  in  analyzing  indi- 
vidual experience,  that  perhaps  in  closing  a  few 
words  of  caution  are  needed.  These  subtle 
longings,  dejections,  and  vacillations  of  the 
lover  of  God,  like  similar  moods  reported  by 
the  poets  of  human  love,  are  not  mere  state- 
ments of  autobiographic  fact.  Undoubtedly 
they  start  with  fact,  and  how  large  is  the 
measure  of  that  fact  in  Herbert's  verse  I  have 
shown  in  my  account  of  his  life.  But  though 
seven  eighths  of  his  poems  employ  the  word 
"I,"  they  do  not  confine  themselves  to  per- 
sonal record.   What  Herbert  gives  us  of  inner 


i 


GEORGE  HERBERT  131 

experience,  no  less  than  what  Chaucer  gave  of 
outer,  is  colored  by  the  temperament  through 
which  it  passes.  Starting  with  a  veritable  fact, 
Herbert  allows  this  to  dictate  congenial  cir- 
cumstances, to  color  all  details  with  its  influ- 
ence, to  eliminate  the  belittlements  of  reality, 
and  so  to  exhibit  an  emotional  completeness 
which  may  not  have  been  found  in  his  actual 
life.  This  is  the  work  of  the  artist  everywhere, 
to  idealize  reality.  Herbert  thus  idealizes.  But 
he  is  no  mere  sentimentalist,  living  in  shifting 
feelings,  and  fancying  that  to-day  God  has 
withdrawn  his  love  from  him  whom  he  yester- 
day favored.  Nor  yet  are  the  poems  fictitious 
which  so  declare  him.  Herbert's  own  experi- 
ence warrants  fears  which  he  knows  are  not 
peculiar  to  himself.  They  belong  to  love  every- 
where. In  them  he  finds  subjects  of  sad  pleas- 
ure which  his  empty  days,  disciplined  mind, 
and  artistic  skill  fashioned  into  forms  of  per- 
manent beauty. 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

Herbert's  two  sonnets  to  his  mother,  showing  in  their 
style  the  strong  influence  of  Donne  and  announcing  his 
resolve  to  devote  himself  to  religious  love-poetry,  are 
quoted  by  Walton  in  his  "Life"  of  Herbert,  and  I  have 
included  them  in  my  edition  of  Herbert's  Works. 

Herbert's  ability  to  pack  much  matter  into  few  words 
and,  like  his  friend  Bacon,  to  coin  proverbial  sayings, 
may  be  seen  in  any  stanza  of  "The  Church  Porch." 

His  piety  utters  itself  in  such  poems  as  "The  Elixer," 
"Clasping  of  Hands,"  "The  Pearl,"  "The  Glance,"  "The 
Second  Jordan." 

"Aaron,"  "The  Priesthood,"  "An  Offering,"  "Para- 
dise," "Gratefulness"  "Love,"  show  the  attractions  of 
the  priesthood. 

One  sees  his  divided  mind  in  the  long  "Affliction,** 
"The  Collar,"  "The  Answer,"  "The  Second  Temper,'* 
"Submission,"  "The  Flower." 

Poems  of  power,  which  well  illustrate  the  style  and  the 
man,  are  "Sunday,"  " Constancie,"  "Man,"  "Virtue," 
"Sinne,"  "The  Method,"  "The  Forerunners." 

Good  examples  of  his  playful  intellectualism  are  "The 
Pulley,"  "Peace,"  "Sinnes  Round,"  "A  Wreath," 
"Mortification." 


V 

Alexander  Pope 


V 

ALEXANDER  POPE 

In  speaking  of  the  different  philosophical  atti- 
tudes of  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Frederic  Denison 
Maurice,  an  acute  English  critic  once  said  that 
whenever  a  new  idea  was  presented  to  Mill  his 
immediate  question  was,  Is  it  true?  When 
presented  to  Maurice,  his  was,  What  does  it 
mean?  The  second  of  these  inquiries  was  on 
the  whole,  the  critic  thought,  the  more  pro- 
found. A  somewhat  similar  question  attends 
the  devotee  of  poetry.  Approaching  poetry  in 
our  youth,  we  are  contented  to  ask,  "Do  I  like 
it,  does  it  accord  with  my  present  modes  of 
feeling,  do  I  find  in  it  a  reflection  of  my  own 
face?"  But  soon  such  interest  is  discovered  to 
be  sentimental  and  enfeebling.  As  we  grow 
older,  we  either  discard  poetry  altogetlier  or 
we  approach  it  from  a  different  side;  that  is, 
we  now  ask,  what  does  it  signify,  what  phase 
of  human  nature  finds  expression  here?  All 
the  better  if  it  is  some  phase  which  as  yet  has 
not  been  fully  developed  in  ourselves.  The 
important  work  of  poetry  is  to  broaden  our 


138    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

sympathies,  to  enlarge  our  imagination,  to 
lead  us  to  view  humanity  in  the  total  extent 
of  its  range.  I  hope  this  book  may  impel  its 
readers  in  these  energetic  directions.  Already 
my  demands  have  been  considerable.  We 
have  found  poetry  reflecting  the  outer  world. 
We  have  looked  upon  it  as  a  dreamland,  closely 
associated  with  music.  We  have  seen  it  as 
introspection,  the  individual  soul  standing  soli- 
tary before  its  Maker  endeavoring  to  compre- 
hend its  varying  moods  as  it  now  approaches 
and  now  falls  away  from  its  mighty  love.  Many 
of  my  readers  will  find  it  difficult  to  conceive 
religion  in  the  fervently  individuahstic  way  in 
which  Herbert  exhibits  it. 

In  this  chapter  we  consider  a  poet  still 
farther  removed  from  our  natural  sympathies. 
Hese,  I  congratulate  myself,  my  reader  will  be 
forced  to  exercise  his  imagination  in  a  field  he 
instinctively  dislikes.  In  most  of  us,  at  least, 
Pope  meets  a  strong  adverse  prejudice.  We 
know  that  he  was  once  a  mighty  sovereign,  but 
believe  that  long  ago  he  was  rightly  dethroned 
and  proved  to  be  the  wearer  of  a  tinsel  crown. 
To-day  he  is  out  of  fashion;  and  while  his 
pregnant  sentences  still  serve  as  proverbs,  few 
think  of  reading  him.    He  accordingly  offers 


ALEXANDER  POPE  139 

the  best  of  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of 
that  imagination  on  which  I  have  been  insist- 
ing. Let  my  readers  try  to  bring  themselves 
into  the  strange  and  somewhat  repellent  con- 
ditions under  which  Pope  wrote. 

I  will  not  call  Pope  one  of  the  greatest  of 
poets,  but  he  is  an  essential  one.  Modern 
poetry  could  not  have  come  into  existence 
until  he  had  shown  us  a  section  of  what  its 
work  was  to  be.  Call  it  but  a  section,  say  that 
much  of  it  is  trivial,  still  it  is  important.  We 
cannot  comprehend  how  the  later  poetry  is 
derived  from  the  earlier  unless  we  have  com- 
prehended his. 

How,  then,  can  we  bring  ourselves  into  a 
cordial  attitude  toward  a  writer  at  once  so 
necessary  yet  so  frequently  distasteful?  I  be- 
lieve we  shall  do  it  best  by  giving  clear  utter- 
ance to  the  half-conscious  hostile  thoughts 
which  are  in  the  minds  of  most  of  us.  In  order 
to  set  Pope  on  high,  as  ultimately  I  hope  to 
do,  I  will  for  tlie  moment  attempt  to  pull 
him  down.  I  will  indicate  at  least  where  his 
shortcomings  lie.  For  these  are  grave  and 
so  obtrusive  that  until  we  have  put  them 
out  of  the  way  we  can  hardly  perceive  his 
merits. 


140    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

In  disparaging  Pope,  then,  let  me  first  call 
attention  to  the  narrow  range  of  his  subjects. 
His  sympathies  are  meagre  and  do  not  extend 
to  outward  nature.  One  of  his  longer  poems  is 
entitled  "Windsor  Forest,"  and  in  that  forest 
Pope  grew  up.  Binfield,  his  home,  is  only  a 
few  miles  distant  from  the  village  which  in- 
spired Milton's  "Allegro"  and  "Penseroso." 
But  Pope  is  occupied  in  Windsor  Forest  less 
with  trees  than  with  men.  Wordsworth  thought 
there  were  one  or  two  adjectives  in  the  poem 
which  show  that  Pope  had  had  his  eye  on  a 
natural  object.  But  the  poem  is  a  human  docu- 
ment, as  are  all  Pope's.  This  need  be  no  dis- 
paragement. Pope  is  essentially  a  humanist, 
and  a  humanist  is  nothing  in  itself  disgraceful. 
But  Pope's  interest  in  men  —  men  and  women 
—  hardly  extends  beyond  that  of  a  single  time 
and  place;  the  London  of  his  day.  Never  in 
his  life  was  he  a  hundred  miles  away  from  Lon- 
don, and  all  his  thought  is  bounded  by  its 
streets.  Even  within  it  he  regards  only  a  sec- 
tion of  its  people.  Of  the  so-called  lower  classes 
he  never  speaks.  His  concern  is  entirely  with 
two  small  groups,  the  courtiers  or  politicians, 
and  the  literary  men,  the  two  classes  in  every 
community  most  artificial  and  remote  from 


ALEXANDER  POPE  141 

common  life.  And  even  in  his  dealings  with 
these  we  must  reduce  his  scope  still  more;  for 
it  is  not  their  elemental  passions  which  he 
shows,  but  rather  their  manners,  spites,  and 
superficialities.  Nowhere  in  Pope  do  we  find 
the  profound  hopes,  loves,  longings,  and  de- 
spairs which  Herbert  offers.  These  are  cast 
away  as  unfit  for  verse.  The  outside  of  people, 
persons  as  they  appear  at  an  evening  party, 
make  up  the  stuff  of  his  pages. 

In  all  his  writing,  too,  a  certain  lack  of 
originality  is  generally  felt.  Independent  intel- 
lectual grasp  we  do  not  find.  He  is  ever  lean- 
ing on  others.  In  early  life  it  is  Trumbull, 
Wycherley,  Walsh,  to  whom  he  looks  and  whom 
he  makes  his  guides.  In  his  middle  period  it  is 
Swift.  In  his  later  and  greatest  time  he  is  in 
close  intellectual  dependence  on  Bolingbroke. 
During  the  last  half-dozen  years  of  his  life,  he 
formed  a  less  worthy  connection  and  Warbur- 
ton  controls.  He  must  always  see  himself 
through  the  eyes  of  somebody  else  and,  per- 
haps by  consequence,  has  little  freshness  of 
vision.  The  substance  of  his  poetry  is  common- 
place and  rarely  discloses  any  such  insight  into 
life  as  makes  us  aware  of  what  we  are  and 
whither  the  world  is  tending.   Pope's  thoughts 


142    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

are  our  own,  merely  given  back  to  us  in  more 
polished  form. 

In  estimating,  too,  the  degree  of  Pope's 
dependence  on  others  one  must  remember  how 
all  his  life  was  spent  under  the  shadow  of 
Dry  den.  Dryden  had  been  the  literary  dictator 
of  the  previous  generation,  and  to  rival  him 
in  each  of  his  many  styles  was  the  perpetual 
ambition  of  Pope.  Dryden  modernized  Chau- 
cer; so  did  Pope.  Dryden  translated  Virgil; 
Pope,  Homer.  Dryden  criticized  tragedy;  Pope 
poetry  in  general.  Dryden  gave  us  the  portrait 
of  Eleonora  and  Mrs.  Killigrew;  Pope  that  of 
an  Unfortunate  Lady  and  Eloisa.  Dryden 
wrote  a  long  theological  plea  for  Protestantism 
and  later  one  for  Catholicism;  Pope,  one  no 
less  long  in  defence  of  optimistic  Deism.  Dry- 
den satirized  MacFlecknoe;  Pope,  Cibber  and 
Theobald.  Dryden  sang  of  Alexander's  Feast; 
Pope,  of  St.  Cecilia's  Day.  Once  Pope  ven- 
tured, in  collaboration  with  Gay,  on  writing  a 
play,  for  which  he  was  singularly  unfit.  Both 
he  and  Dryden,  though  Catholics,  aspired  to 
the  very  first  place  in  the  literature  of  a  Protes- 
tant land,  and  the  standard  verse-form  of  both 
is  the  heroic  couplet,  developed  into  its  highest 
unity  by  Pope.  There  is  a  legend  that  Pope  in 


ALEXANDER  POPE  143 

his  earlier  years  was  taken  to  view  the  great 
Dryden,  sitting  enthroned  in  Will's  Coffee 
House.  At  any  rate,  Dryden's  robust  hand 
never  left  the  stooping  shoulders  of  his  sensi- 
tive little  successor. 

But  we  must  not  omit  one  further  limitation 
of  Pope's  poetry  which  holds  back  many  of  his 
readers,  his  lack  of  continuity  and  his  monot- 
ony. Both  connect  themselves  with  the  use  of 
that  poetic  instrument  of  which  I  was  just 
speaking,  the  closed  couplet  or  ten-syllabled 
iambic  stanza.  This  is  the  music  to  which 
nine  tenths  of  his  poetry  is  set,  and  it  is  the 
music  of  the  bagpipes  or  accordion.  Remember 
how  almost  every  poem  of  Herbert's  had  its 
special  measure,  one  springing  from  its  subject, 
and  then  consider  the  almost  mechanical  form 
imposed  on  pretty  much  everything  Pope  offers 
us.  No  wonder  we  find  such  pages  monotonous 
and  after  reading  three  or  four  of  them  lose 
something  of  our  hold  on  the  meaning.  The 
brief  little  sections  easily  fall  apart.  No  Eng- 
lish measure  has  less  staying  power,  and  Pope's 
couplets  are  beyond  all  others  in  lack  of  coher- 
ence. He  straps  together  bundles  of  them  into 
connected  poems;  any  one  of  these  poems,  say 
the  "Essay  on  Criticism,"  might  about  as  well 


144    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

be  read  backwards  as  forwards.  Usually  if  we 
study  a  poem  of  Pope's  suflSciently,  we  can  find 
a  kind  of  plan  in  it;  but  that  plan  is  not  tight 
and  obligatory.  The  couplets,  each  exquisite 
in  itself,  straggle  out  upon  the  page  about  as 
disjointedly  as  they  first  struck  the  mind  of 
the  writer. 

These  are  grave  indictments.  When  we 
have  judged  a  poet  to  be  petty  in  subject,  com- 
monplace in  thought,  loose  and  monotonous  in 
treatment,  we  have  left  small  room  for  merits. 
Yet  I  believe  I  have  not  exaggerated  nor  said 
anything  novel.  Whoever  has  read  Pope  at  all 
has  felt  these  faults. 

But  besides  objections  to  Pope's  art,  others 
are  justly  brought  against  his  character.  Un- 
pleasing  personal  peculiarities  obtrude  them- 
selves through  all  his  writings.  He  is  the  vain- 
est of  English  poets,  continually  talking  about 
himself.  Not  content  with  giving  us  abundant 
autobiographical  details,  he  insists  that  these 
show  him  to  be  a  marvel  of  virtue  and  superior 
to  every  one  else.  Such  talk  is  tiresome.  At 
first  we  excuse  it  by  supposing  that  in  such 
passages  Pope  may  be  presenting  ideals  of 
what  he  would  be  rather  than  statements  of 
what  he  thinks  he  is.  But  when  we  look  up  the 


ALEXANDER  POPE  145 

records  of  his  life  we  find  that  vanity  filled  it 
with  envy,  hatred,  and  all  uncharitableness. 
His  years  and  writings  abound  in  quarrels. 
Many  of  the  persons  assailed  we  do  not  other- 
wise know,  and  they  may  be  said  to  have 
acquired  a  certain  sort  of  immortality  by  his 
very  attack.  But  we  at  least  know  enough  of 
his  feuds  to  be  sure  that  most  of  them  were  un- 
necessary and  that  a  character  so  ready  to  take 
offence  had  serious  flaws. 

Probably,  too,  most  persons  will  feel  a  cer- 
tain insincerity  in  the  verse  and  will  call  it 
artificial,  if  nothing  worse.  It  is  striking  that 
about  in  proportion  as  English  poetry  becomes 
clear  and  simple,  it  becomes  doubtfully  sincere. 
Nobody  questions  the  veracity  of  Donne  and 
his  followers.  If  we  should  take  Herbert  aside 
and  say  what  a  puzzling  phrase  that  was  "in 
your  poem  on  Man.  Did  you  mean  it?"  would 
he  not  answer,  "Yes,  and  I  am  sorry  that  in 
order  to  state  my  meaning  exactly,  I  was 
obliged  to  be  a  trifle  obscure."  The  metaphysi- 
cal poets,  in  short,  do  not  write  for  display, 
but  for  relief  of  their  own  minds.  This  cannot 
be  said  of  the  Queen- Anne's  Men.  While  it  is 
their  special  office  to  rationalize  poetry  and 
convey  clear  thought  which  may  be  read  with 


146    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

ease,  they  seldom  escape  the  suspicion  of  osten- 
tatious performance,  Pope  least  of  all.  The 
critical  studies  of  Dilke,  Elwin,  and  others  have 
shown  conclusively  that  Pope's  statements 
about  himself  cannot  be  trusted.  He  claims  a 
nobler  ancestry  than  he  had;  dates  his  poems 
earlier  than  they  were  written,  in  order  to  seem 
precocious;  and  when  he  would  publish  his 
letters,  and  yet  is  half  ashamed  to  do  so,  he 
resorts  to  elaborate  intrigue,  pretending  that 
others  are  surreptitiously  publishing  and  so 
he  is  obliged  to  put  them  out  himself.  Collect- 
ing letters  from  his  many  correspondents,  he 
improves  their  quality  by  rewriting,  changes 
their  dates  and  sometimes  their  addresses,  re- 
ferring them  to  a  different  person  from  the  one 
to  whom  they  were  sent.  Then  he  issues  them 
as  veritable  originals.  Pope's  mind  was  tortu- 
ous. In  his  own  time  it  was  well  said  of  him 
that  he  could  not  drink  a  cup  of  tea  without  a 
stratagem. 

This  is  the  man  for  whom  I  now  ask  admira- 
tion. While  I  believe  all  I  have  said  in  his  dis- 
praise is  true,  I  would  also  recall  the  warning 
of  an  earlier  chapter:  we  must  not  base  our 
judgment  of  a  poet  on  what  is  not  in  him,  but 
on  what  is.  When  we  turn,  our  attention  away 


ALEXANDER  POPE  147 

from  the  defects  of  Pope  and  fix  it  on  his  posi- 
tive merits,  we  quickly  see  how  precious  has 
been  his  contribution  to  our  verse.  This  is 
De  Quincey's  estimate:  "Alexander  Pope,  the 
most  brilliant  of  all  wits  who  have  at  any  period 
applied  themselves  to  the  poetic  treatment  of 
human  manners,  to  the  selecting  from  the  play 
of  human  character  what  is  picturesque,  or  the 
arresting  what  is  fugitive."  Byron  calls  Pope 
"a  poet  of  a  thousand  years,"  and  many  of  us 
are  under  such  obligations  to  him  that  we  be- 
lieve he  will  have  a  rightful  eminence  so  long 
as  the  English  language  endures.  Let  me  ac- 
knowledge my  own  debt.  My  grandfather  had 
a  good  copy  of  his  poems.  So  while  still  a  boy 
and  knowing  little  of  Pope's  repute,  I  fell  to 
reading  that  volume.  It  fascinated  me.  I 
turned  to  it  again  and  again  until  I  had  ab- 
sorbed it  into  my  very  structure,  where  it  has 
remained  a  blessing  through  all  subsequent 
years.  But  how  can  all  this  be?  How  can  one 
so  repellent  to  many  in  work  and  character  ex- 
cite also  such  enthusiasm?  To  solve  the  para- 
dox we  must  turn  from  his  weaknesses  and 
consider  his  strengtlis,  at  the  same  time  keep- 
ing clearly  in  mind  the  type  of  English  poetry 
for  which  he  stands. 


148    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Yet  before  fixing  that  type,  I  suppose  I  must 
in  some  degree  clear  his  character;  for  so  long 
as  he  is  morally  objectionable,  his  poetic  worth 
is  likely  to  be  granted  grudgingly.  My  first 
claim  for  him  then  shall  be  that  he  showed  a 
marvellous  heroism  in  accepting  his  limita- 
tions. We  all  have  these.  Each  knows  well  how 
firmly  some  circumstance  hems  him  in,  cutting 
him  off  from  doing  what  he  would.  With  one 
of  us  it  is  bad  health,  with  one  poverty,  with 
one  lack  of  early  training  or  —  worse  —  just 
native  dullness.  Whatever  form  it  takes,  it 
hedges  us  about  and  prevents  the  full  pattern 
which  we  feel  within  us  from  coming  out.  Thus 
we  become  soured  and  rebellious.  Looking  at 
myself  in  comparison  with  others,  I  feel  that 
the  Creator  has  not  been  fair.  Had  he  given  me 
such  chances  as  that  other  man  has,  I  certainly 
should  have  used  them  wisely,  winning  happi- 
ness for  myself  and  blessing  for  humanity. 
Now  I  am  small,  and  my  littleness  is  not  my 
fault.  So  most  of  us  say  when  limitations  press. 
Some  of  the  wiser  sort  accept  the  facts  quietly, 
go  about  their  daily  work  dutifully,  and  try  to 
be  cheerful  in  spite  of  disadvantages.  Occa- 
sionally a  Stevenson  thrills  the  world  by  show- 
ing how  a  man  may  in  himself  be  superior  to 


ALEXANDER  POPE  149 

fate  and  defy  misfortune.  But  of  all  the  men  I 
know,  Pope,  I  think,  met  his  limitations  best, 
better  even  than  Stevenson;  for  in  Stevenson 
there  is  always  something  of  the  Stoic.  He 
knows  how  bad  his  conditions  are,  but  will  not 
let  them  crush  him.  Magnificent!  Yet  Pope 
shows  a  wisdom  higher  still;  he  turns  his  very 
limitations  into  sources  of  power.  It  seems 
incredible  that  this  can  be  done,  especially 
where  limitations  are  so  enormous  as  those 
which  beset  Pope. 

He  was  the  only  son  of  a  London  linen- 
merchant  who  by  middle  life  had  acquired  a 
fair  competence  —  not  a  fortune,  but  a  compe- 
tence —  and  so  retired  from  business,  moved 
out  a  little  way  from  London,  and  took  a  house 
at  Binfield,  in  the  forest  adjoining  Windsor. 
The  boy  was  born  of  parents  already  advanced 
in  years  —  the  mother  forty -eight  —  and  bom 
a  cripple.  There  was  curvature  of  the  spine 
and  with  it  came  subsequently  almost  every 
ailment  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  His  face,  notwith- 
standing the  brilliant  eye,  showed  marks  of 
constant  pain.  Headaches  were  frequent  and 
prevented  his  working  for  any  long  connected 
time.  There  was  a  disposition  to  asthma,  and 
nervous  disease  in  all  its  distressing  forms  was 


150    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

on  him  from  childhood,  much  intensified  by 
the  severe  studies  of  his  youth.  His  distorted 
figure  never  attained  a  height  of  more  than 
four  feet. 

What  prospect  in  life  was  there  for  such  a 
crippled  child.''  Of  course  any  active  employ- 
ment was  out  of  the  question.  Only  one  career 
lay  open,  a  life  with  books.  He  might  become 
a  scholar,  or  rather  a  scholar  at  intervals. 
Persistence  might  bring  learning  even  if  con- 
tinuous study  was  impossible.  But  here  the 
barbarous  laws  of  his  country  intervened.  His 
parents  were  Catholics,  and  Pope  himself  was 
intensely  loyal.  His  nature  was  not  a  religious 
one.  He  cared  little  for  doctrine.  To  be  a 
Protestant  would  have  been  throughout  life 
greatly  to  his  interest,  and  not  much  against 
his  inclination.  But  it  was  not  in  him  to  desert 
an  oppressed  cause,  nor  would  he  put  a  barrier 
between  himself  and  those  he  loved.  In  conse- 
quence he  was  shut  out  from  all  the  great 
schools  and  universities  of  his  country.  Why 
not,  then,  join  those  of  the  Continent?  He  was 
too  frail.  His  health  would  not  permit  it.  For 
the  same  reason,  too,  he  was  cut  off  from  that 
which  for  many  men  well  supplies  the  loss  of 
university   training,    travel.     No,    Pope   was 


ALEXANDER  POPE  151 

hemmed  in.  Both  nature  and  man  forbade  him 
opportunities.  Most  men  finding  themselves 
in  such  a  case  would  think  they  did  well  if 
they  amused  themselves  with  books  and  talk 
from  day  to  day  without  bringing  discomfort 
on  others.  Who  of  us  would  have  set  a  con- 
scious task  before  ourselves,  one,  too,  so  difii- 
cult  that  in  it  the  best  equipped  seldom  suc- 
ceed, and  then  by  the  time  we  were  twenty- 
one  have  arrived  at  acknowledged  eminence? 
That  is  what  Pope  did.  Obscure  in  birth, 
feeble  in  frame,  forbidden  education,  before  he 
is  twelve  he  resolves  that  the  world  shall  hear 
him  and  so  compensate  for  that  which  he  after- 
wards called  "this  long  disease,  my  life."  He 
did  not  let  his  limitations  fret  him  into  idle- 
ness, but  used  them  as  helps,  indications  of  the 
paths  through  which  he  might  reach  power. 
Of  course  under  such  difficulties  he  must  sys- 
tematically manage  himself,  think  all  out 
beforehand,  and  make  up  with  brain  what  was 
lacking  in  physical  advantage.  His  is  a  verit- 
able dedication  of  himself  to  poetry. 

He  consulted  friends  to  learn  what  portion 
of  the  poetic  field  was  as  yet  unoccupied,  and 
fortunately  got  from  the  adniiraljle  critic 
Walsh  a  magic  word.    Walsh  told  him  that 


152    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

English  poetry  had  accomplished  pretty  much 
everything  else  except  "correctness."  Who- 
ever could  introduce  that  would  find  a  place. 
We  need  not  puzzle  ourselves  over  the  precise 
meaning  of  the  word.  Enough  that,  remember- 
ing how  at  some  lucky  moment  a  golden  saying 
has  enriched  our  life,  we  perceive  that  correct- 
ness must  at  least  have  suggested  the  idea  of 
correcting.  The  metaphysical  poets,  the  men 
of  Donne's  school,  poured  forth  in  profusion 
whatever  came  into  their  heads,  regardless  for 
the  most  part  of  lucidity,  order  or  rule.  Her- 
bert is  about  the  only  one  among  them  who 
revised  his  text,  and  he  did  not  do  it  in  the 
interest  of  clearness.  Little  they  cared  whether 
they  were  comprehended.  Their  first  thoughts 
were  their  only  ones.  But  lasting  literature  is 
best  built  out  of  second  thoughts.  If  after  set- 
ting down  what  in  our  first  heat  we  think  we 
have  to  say,  we  go  over  and  correct  it  subse- 
quently, we  may  reach  what  Wordsworth  de- 
manded of  poetry,  "emotion  recalled  in  tran- 
quillity." Walsh  was  right  in  saying  there  had 
been  little  of  this  hitherto  in  English  verse, 
and  to  it  the  eager  boy  at  once  addressed  him- 
self. By  the  time  he  was  twelve  Pope  had 
produced  a  little  masterpiece  in  his  lines  on 


ALEXANDER  POPE  153 

**The  Quiet  Life";  a  translation  of  Horace's 
"Beatusille": 

**  Happy  the  man  whose  wish  and  care 
A  few  paternal  acres  bound. 
Content  to  breathe  his  native  air, 
In  his  own  ground. 

Whose  herds  with  milk,  whose  fields  with  bread. 
Whose  flocks  supply  him  with  attire. 

Whose  trees  in  summer  yield  him  shade 
In  winter  fire. 

Blest  who  can  unconcernedly  find 

Hours,  days,  and  years  slide  soft  away. 

In  health  of  body,  peace  of  mind. 
Quiet  by  day, 

Sound  sleep  by  night,  study  and  ease 

Together  mixed,  sweet  recreation. 
And  innocence,  which  most  does  please 

With  meditation. 

Thus  let  me  live,  unseen,  unknown 

Thus  unlamented  let  me  die. 
Steal  from  the  world,  and  not  a  stone 

Tell  where  I  lie." 

That  could  hardly  be  improved,  either  in 
sense  or  sound.  1^4  any  one  try  to  change  a 
word,  and  he  will  discover  how  near  its  sim- 
plicity comes  to  perfection.  Each  line  takes 
just  the  course  it  must  take;  and  yet  there  is 


154    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

good  reason  to  believe  it  was  written  in  Pope's 
twelfth  year.  Of  course  he  retouched  it  later, 
as  he  did  all  his  writing.  But  here  it  stands, 
an  early  proof  that  Pope  could  accomplish  his 
aim  in  spite  of  his  limitations  —  yes,  by  their 
aid. 

Soon  recognizing,  too,  that  continuous  intel- 
lectual labor  was  impossible  for  him,  instead  of 
rebelling  he  turned  to  that  which  may  well  be 
discontinuous.  The  couplet  is  the  form  of  Eng- 
lish verse  which  can  best  be  taken  up  piecemeal 
and  by  piecemeal  polished.  Pope  devoted  him- 
self to  it.  He  distributed  scraps  of  paper  about 
his  house,  had  bits  even  at  his  bedside  —  for 
his  sleep  was  never  more  than  intermittent 
and  whenever  a  clever  couplet  occurred  to  him, 
down  it  went  on  paper.  These  papers  were  then 
gathered,  the  coherences  among  them  noted, 
and  they  were  gradually  fashioned  into  a  poem. 
There  is  something  pathetic  in  what  I  urged  a 
while  ago  to  his  disparagement,  that  most  of 
his  poems  are  not  closely  knit.  Nature  forbade 
that.  But  Pope,  instead  of  resenting  it,  made 
fragments  to  shine.  He  carried  the  closed 
couplet  to  the  utmost  point  of  refinement  it 
was  ever  to  reach  in  England.  He  regarded  it 
as  a  veritable  stanza  and  accordingly  thought 


ALEXANDER  POPE  155 

that,  as  in  any  stanza,  the  sense  should  be 
tolerably  complete  within  its  bounds.  Already 
this  tendency  to  shut  up  the  couplet  within 
itself  had  appeared  in  Dryden  and  Waller;  but 
it  is  Pope  who  gave  that  final  touch  which  made 
the  couplet  really  adequate  to  itself.  In  com- 
pacting it  thus,  he  clearly  understood  the  dan- 
gers it  would  meet.  The  verse  might  easily 
become  monotonous,  just  one  repeated  beat. 
But  what  subtlety  he  has  used  for  avoiding 
this!  Reading  his  verses  carelessly,  we  often 
fail  to  notice  how  neatly  he  has  shifted  his 
pause  —  the  pause,  I  mean,  midway  in  the 
line,  the  caesura  —  sometimes  drawing  it  nearer 
the  beginning,  sometimes  delaying  it  till  toward 
the  end,  readjusting  it  with  every  refinement 
so  that  successive  lines  may  not  be  too  similar. 
In  this  way  he  introduces  a  delicate  music  into 
his  verse  and  brings  out  all  the  limited  capac- 
ity of  the  closed  couplet. 

No  wonder  that  such  a  man  who  in  early  life 
saw  so  clearly  the  literary  tendencies  of  his 
age,  soon  attracted  the  attention  of  notable 
men  of  letters.  He  speedily  became  recognized 
as  the  prince  of  them  all.  This  cripple,  this 
tradesman's  son,  this  youth  hampered  by 
feeble    health    and    fragmentary    education. 


156    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

makes  English  literary  and  political  life  bow 
down  to  him  as  a  great  power.  What  a  feat  to 
accomplish  in  earliest  manhood!  Well  might 
he  afterwards  exultingly  say, 

"Yes,  I  am  proud,  I  must  be  proud  to  see 
Men  not  afraid  of  God  afraid  of  me." 

If  now  Pope's  character  is  partially  cleared, 
if  we  see  that  he  is  entitled  to  respect  as  a  man, 
that  his  energetic  life  has  in  it  much  which  is 
pathetic,  and  stimulating  to  ourselves,  we  may 
perhaps  be  prepared  to  examine  dispassion- 
ately the  special  contribution  he  made  to  our 
poetry.  We  shall  best  begin  to  do  so  by  ob- 
serving that  he  is  our  first  man  of  pure  letters, 
our  first  professional  poet. 

Every  writer  before  Pope  had  taken  poetry 
as  a  collateral  employment,  in  connection  with 
days  devoted  to  something  else.  Chaucer,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  a  man  of  the  court,  a  soldier, 
a  foreign  envoy.  Spenser  was  one  of  the  con- 
querors of  Ireland.  Herbert  was  a  courtier,  a 
teacher  at  the  University,  a  country  minister. 
These  all  found  time  for  poetry  also;  but  they 
did  not  devote  themselves  to  it.  One  greater 
than  they  all  attempted  this,  Milton.  From 
earliest  years  he  had  consecrated  himself  to 
poetry  as  to  a  holy  calling,  but  the  exigencies 


ALEXANDER  POPE  U7 

of  his  country  combined  with  a  faltering  pur- 
pose to  check  him.  During  thirty  of  the  middle 
years  of  his  life,  suspending  poetic  employ- 
ment, Milton  became  a  political  pamphleteer 
and  Secretary  to  the  Commonwealth.  No,  it  is 
not  incorrect  to  say  that  Pope  is  the  first  among 
our  literary  men  to  give  himself  up  through  an 
entire  life  whole-heartedly  to  poetry.  This  is 
what  the  musician,  the  painter,  the  sculptor 
do  as  a  matter  of  course  with  their  exacting 
arts.  But  perhaps  some  of  my  readers  will  not 
approve  such  a  method  in  poetry.  They  may 
call  it  artificial,  think  the  poet  had  better  re- 
main something  of  an  amateur.  If  he  engages 
only  in  his  art  he  may  not  feel  the  full  tides  of 
life.  Probably  Pope  never  felt  them  fully. 
Under  the  conditions  in  which  he  found  him- 
self it  was  impossible  to  do  so.  But  one  thing 
he  knew  wx'll  and  loved  ardently,  pure  litera- 
ture, perfect  expression.  For  this  he  was  ready 
to  endure  hardship.  And  we  cannot  under- 
stand, certainly  not  enjoy,  him  unless  we  too 
know  how  difficult  smooth-slipping  sentences 
are  to  fashion,  and  so  feel  a  corresponding 
pleasure  wherever  they  appear.  Before  we  can 
care  for  Pope  we  must  hate  all  that  is  awk- 
ward, extravagant,  or  fantastic  in  writing,  and 


158    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

highly  prize  lucidity,  ease  and  lightness  of 
touch.  These  latter  difficult  excellencies  we 
are  apt  to  rate  as  subordinate  or  even  trivial. 
Pope  gives  up  a  life  to  them  with  entire  serious- 
ness and  consummately  attains  them.  Of  him 
might  be  said  what  Tennyson  said  of  his 
Edmund,  that  "lucky  rhymes  to  him  were 
scrip  and  share,  and  mellow  metres  more  than 
cent  for  cent." 

Thus  I  am  led  at  once  to  point  out  wherein 
I  regard  Pope  as  typical  and  why  it  seemed  to 
me  that  in  presenting  half  a  dozen  types  of 
poetry,  that  is,  the  work  of  men  who  were 
really  discoverers,  opening  to  English  poetry 
emotional  tracts  which  before  were  closed,  I 
ought  to  include  Pope.  The  ideal  he  followed 
is  ordinarily  spoken  of  as  the  *' classical  ideal" 
and  his  school  the  "Classical  School."  No 
label  is  accurate.  One  man  covered  by  it 
swings  to  the  right,  another  to  the  left  of  its 
meaning,  and  much  that  interests  Pope  stands 
outside  classicism  altogether.  Still,  the  word 
may  guide  us  to  his  type,  only  we  must  not 
suppose  that  the  English  Classicists  imitate 
Greek  writers.  The  word  has  passed  through 
France,  and  French  standards  were  now  be- 
coming those  of  England  too.  Dryden  had  felt 


^ALEXANDER  POPE  159 

their  attraction.  Pope  felt  it  still  more  and 
found  it  still  nearer  akin  to  his  own  genius.  For 
how  neat  the  French  mind  is!  How  it  abhors 
the  "too  much"  and  keeps  itself  within  bounds. 
The  ancient  Greek  in  his  inscription  on  Apol- 
lo's temple —  firiBkv  dyav  "not  too  much"  — 
taught  respect  for  the  limit.  The  finite  is  the 
field  for  man,  not  the  infinite.  The  Gothic, 
Northern,  or  German  spirit,  on  the  contrary, 
aspires  gropingly  after  the  infinite.  It  never 
grasps  it,  of  course,  but  we  admire  its  mighty 
reach.  It  may  be  that  those  who  restrict  them- 
selves to  the  finite  are  in  danger  of  remaining 
small,  but  some  are  content  to  be  so  if  only 
they  may  be  precise. 

Just  before  Pope's  time  the  need  had  been 
felt  of  such  sober,  rational,  and  corrective  influ- 
ences as  the  neo-Classicists  upheld.  In  all  the 
countries  of  western  Europe  an  era  of  social 
good  sense  was  following  one  of  enthusiasm 
and  turbulent  egotism.  It  affected  politics  no 
less  than  literature.  Pope  was  born  in  1688,  the 
child  of  a  revolution  which  was  worked  out  by 
sensible  constitutional  nieans,  following  at  a 
distance  of  only  forty  years  one  of  the  most 
tumultuous  outbreaks  which  the  world  had  at 
that  time  known.   Good  sense  and  compromise 


160    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

were  in  Pope's  blood.  He  led  a  much  needed 
literary  reaction  against  the  disorderly  writers 
who  preceded  him.  The  Metaphysical  School 
had  cared  little  for  good  taste,  for  social  stand- 
ards, for  neat  expression.  Their  far-fetched 
analogies,  their  wild  conceits,  their  introspec- 
tive personal  gaze,  their  fondness  for  specula- 
tion and  inaptitude  for  facts,  rendered  poetry 
almost  unintelligible.  English  literature  was 
overrun  with  a  jungle  growth,  and  some  one 
was  needed  to  cut  paths  through. 

This  is  the  work  of  the  Classicists  with  their 
engine  of  rationality.  The  metaphysical  poets 
are  irrational.  They  utter  merely  what  the 
moment  brings  and  the  individual  feels.  But 
reason  requires  social  adjustment.  The  feeling 
which  springs  hot  from  the  heart  of  the  poet 
must  be  tempered  to  meet  the  conditions  of  a 
receiving  mind.  That  social  tempering  is  the 
very  essence  of  art,  a  difficult  business,  in 
which,  however,  we  are  not  left  without  aid. 
Through  all  the  ages  men  have  been  studying 
the  best  modes  of  approach  of  man  to  man,  and 
the  results  of  that  experience  are  summed  up 
in  those  laws  of  good  taste  which  are  embodied 
in  the  work  of  great  poets  and  critics  of 
the  past.    These  teach  us  how  futile  a  being 


ALEXANDER  POPE  161 

the  obscure,  redundant,  awkward,  self-centred 
poet  is.  He  has  been  unwilling  to  take  trouble 
on  himself  in  behalf  of  his  neighbor.  He  should 
be  socialized,  rationalized.  Most  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  was  a  time  of  extreme  individ- 
ualism. Pope's  age  of  reason  lays  insistence  on 
social  proprieties.  Who  will  say  that  they  were 
not  needed? 

Yet  such  standards  of  social  propriety  nar- 
row in  some  respects  the  sympathies  of  him 
who  adopts  them.  Enthusiasm,  for  example, 
is  soon  looked  upon  with  suspicion,  because  it 
cannot  be  exactly  explained  nor  fully  shared. 
It  isolates  him  who  feels  it,  and  should  have 
consequently  no  place  in  literature,  which  deals 
with  what  is  comprehensible  by  all.  That  sen- 
sible clarity  which  Addison  was  exhibiting  in 
the  essay  and  Locke  in  philosophy,  it  was  the 
office  of  Pope  to  bring  over  into  poetry.  All 
three,  purged  of  blind  enthusiasm,  move  among 
such  subjects  and  employ  such  language  as 
cultivated  gentlemen  might  use  at  a  casual 
meeting.  They  avoid  pedantry  and  hot  emo- 
tion. They  keep  clear  of  whatever  is  heavy, 
obtrusive,  or  personal.  Of  course  while  using 
simple  language,  one  would  be  glad  to  have  his 
language  shine.   A  clever  epigram  is  always  in 


162    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

point.  It  must  not  sprawl  or  show  effort,  as 
did  those  of  the  generation  before,  A  brilliant 
flash  will  please  our  neighbor,  without  burden- 
ing him  with  too  much  thought. 

In  Pope,  then,  perhaps  we  may  see  a  sys- 
tematization  of  that  society-verse  which  in 
loose  and  lyric  fashion  began  with  Lovelace, 
Sedley,  Carew,  and  Rochester  and  has  ever 
since  been  a  valued  type  in  our  poetry.  It  is 
artificial,  of  course,  and  intentionally  insincere, 
that  is,  untrue  to  the  entire  mind  of  the  writer, 
but  we  should  be  poor  indeed  without  it.  Pope 
has  written  much  in  a  more  serious  vein.  Per- 
haps his  masterpiece  in  this  sort  of  Dresden 
china  is  his  airy  "Rape  of  the  Lock." 

To  what  parts  of  life  will  such  a  method  in 
its  graver  use  be  applicable?  Certainly  not  to 
the  human  interior,  the  soul  of  man.  For  this 
it  is  totally  inadequate.  There  we  are  much 
swayed  by  irrational  passions.  Chiefly  to  the 
outside  of  life  a  poetry  is  confined  which  sets 
much  store  on  a  standard  language  and  insists 
on  what  is  rational  in  our  dealings  with  one 
another.  Poets  who  have  been  most  influenced 
by  conceptions  of  this  kind  incline  to  call  them- 
selves "moral"  poets,  making  the  word  refer 
chiefly  to  our  mores  or  manners,  the  way  in 


ALEXANDER  POPE  163 

which  personal  character  displays  itself  in  out- 
ward behavior.  Thus  Pope  writes, 

"Not  in  fancy's  maze  I  wandered  long, 
But  stooped  to  truth  and  moralized  my  song." 

In  his  early  years  through  a  wide  variety  of 
subjects  Pope  sought  to  entertain  his  readers 
with  pleasing  sentimentalities.  But  after  the 
interval  following  his  work  on  Homer  and 
Shakspere,  the  great  world  of  human  conduct 
in  all  its  picturesqueness,  folly,  and  whimsical- 
ity opened  before  him,  and  he  set  himself  to 
study  it  and  teach  it  propriety. 

Yet  neither  Pope  nor  the  later  poets  of  man- 
ners offer  us  the  sharply  differentiated  indi- 
vidual life.  They  deal  with  typical  character, 
expressive  of  some  universal  principle,  not  with 
particular  persons.  Accordingly  they  easily 
pass  over  into  moralizing  and  are  not  afraid  of 
a  stock  expression.  How  far  we  have  travelled 
since  Pope's  day!  How  eagerly  do  our  young 
poets,  shunning  his  simplicity  and  dreading 
a  commonplace  phrase,  tie  up  their  uncertain 
thoughts  in  knots  hard  to  unravel.  Pope's  con- 
trasted aims  are  well  expressed  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  Walsh:  "It  seems  to  mc  not  so  nmch 
the  perfection  of  sense  to  say  those  things  that 
have  never  been  said  before"  —  in   that  en- 


164    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

deavor  at  surprise  so  valued  by  previous  poets 

—  "as  to  say  those  things  best  that  have  been 

said  oftenest."    Or  as  he  versifies  the  same 

thought  : 

"True  wit  is  nature  to  advantage  dressed; 
What  oft  was  thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed." 

We  have  no  right  then  to  demand  profound 
thought  from  Pope.  That  is  not  what  he 
sought,  nor  what  his  special  circumstances 
fitted  him  to  give.  He  aims  at  perfect  expres- 
sion. He  takes  the  ordinary  thoughts  of  aver- 
age men  and  puts  them  with  a  neatness,  vivac- 
ity, fullness,  and  terseness  combined,  which 
had  never  been  seen  before.  Occasionally  his 
desire  for  compact  simphcity  prevents  the 
instantaneous  seizure  of  his  meaning.  But  this 
is  rare.  Usually  he  gives  us  the  perfection  of 
rhetorical  verse,  something  between  prose  and 
poetry.  That  this  was  his  proper  sphere  he 
well  understood.  "Verse-man  or  prose-man, 
term  me  which  you  will,"  he  writes.  It  was  to 
working  within  such  narrow  limits  that  all  his 
industrious  life  was  given;  and  it  was  because 
he  accepted  those  limits  that  he  rose  to  fame. 

Against  them,  though  they  are  the  strength 
of  his  poetry,  we  are  inchned  to  rebel.  As  we 
turn  his  page,  we  probably  say,  "This  is  not 


ALEXANDER  POPE  165 

what  I  cape  for  most  in  poetry."  No,  indeed, 
it  is  not.  But  is  it  not  a  precious,  entertaining, 
instructive  ingredient  of  poetry?  Would  we 
not  wish  to  write  with  such  brilhant  simpHcity? 
Could  English  poetry  have  progressed  without 
these  lessons  on  style.'^  And  would  not  our 
literature  have  missed  something  if  it  had  never 
been  embellished  with  these  striking  pictures 
of  the  conduct  of  our  ancestors?  I  should  an- 
swer all  these  questions  in  the  affirmative  and 
should  say  that  any  one  too  indolent  to  enter 
imaginatively  into  the  restricted  world  of  Pope 
will  be  cutting  himself  off  from  a  powerful 
means  of  intellectual  enlargement. 

Hitherto  I  have  laid  exclusive  stress  on  the 
classical  side  of  Pope.  It  is  his  adhesion  to 
established  standards  of  Hterature  and  conduct, 
his  valuation  of  criticism  above  spontaneity, 
his  substitution  of  second  thoughts  for  first, 
in  short  his  insistence  on  an  unclouded  rational 
diction,  and  his  skill  in  bringing  a  single  im- 
portant metre  to  perfection,  which  marks  his 
type  and  makes  him  a  turning  point  in  English 
poetry.  But  he  has  many  collateral  excellencies. 
One  capable  of  such  pithy  utterance  can  in  a 
sentence  confer  an  immortality  of  honor  or 
shame.    And  what  a  historian  he  is  I    Where 


166    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

else  can  we  bring  ourselves  so  fully  into  that 
strife  between  Whig  and  Tory  through  which 
the  Protestant  line  of  Hanover  was  fixed  on 
the  English  throne  and  the  Catholic  Stuarts 
held  in  exile?  Pope's  party  was  defeated,  but 
his  comments  and  criticisms  are  the  more  inter- 
esting on  that  account.  And  then  just  because 
his  attention  was  confined  to  London,  and  to 
its  wits,  fashionable  ladies,  and  litterateurs,  he 
makes  us  acquainted  with  those  streets  and 
people  as  if  we  too  had  been  born  among  them. 
Every  dozen  fines  of  Pope  brings  before  us 
some  notable  person,  animated  scene,  or  pecu- 
Har  custom,  long  since  gone.  We  may  at  first 
incline  to  compare  his  gallery  of  striking  por- 
traits with  Chaucer's  variety,  or  with  the 
groups  of  delightful  nobodies  sketched  in  a 
subsequent  age  by  Crabbe  and  Jane  Austen. 
But  on  reflection  we  see  that  the  methods  of 
painting  are  contrasted.  The  Classicist  Pope 
starts  with  what  is  general  in  man ;  these  other 
writers  with  what  is  peculiar.  His  is  an  intel- 
lectual apprehension  of  fundamental  principles 
of  conduct,  which  his  figures  merely  illustrate. 
His  characterizations  are  accordingly  brief 
though  deep-going.  The  other  writers  I  have 
named  proceed  by  minute  observation  of  facts. 


ALEXANDER  POPE  167 

Undoubtedly  their  people  are  more  vivid.  I 
cannot  count  them  more  memorable,  varied, 
or  instructive.  They  suit  our  taste  better,  as 
Shakspere  suits  us  better  than  Ben  Jonson. 

The  charge  is  often  brought  against  Pope 
that  he  employed  a  poetic  diction  and  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  artificial  phrases  used  by  those 
who  came  after  him.  I  believe  this  to  be  unjust. 
In  the  tentative  efforts  of  his  early  period,  and 
also  in  his  translation  of  the  Iliad,  the  language 
is  often  bookish,  ornamented,  and  unlike  that 
of  the  man  on  the  street.  And  this  is  natural. 
Poets  do  not  like  to  call  a  spade  a  spade,  for 
they  see  something  more  in  every  object  than 
does  the  passing  beholder.  This  heightened 
dignity  they  sometimes  try  to  convey  by  the 
use  of  conventional  words,  such  as  the  casual 
beholder  would  never  use;  or  else  out  of  the 
language  of  that  common  man  they  select 
words  with  a  sensitiveness  to  their  precise  sig- 
nificance and  emotional  value  such  as  he  him- 
self never  possessed.  The  former  method,  as 
the  easier,  is  apt  to  be  followed  by  half-made 
poets.  It  was  followed  to  some  extent  by  Pope 
himself  when  learning  his  art,  and  afterwards 
by  such  imitators  of  his  defects  as  Young,  Blair, 
and  Pollok.  But  when  in  his  third  period  Pope 


168    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

has  attained  mastery,  he  uses  the  plainest  of 
speech.  Any  one  reading  the  "Moral  Essays," 
*'TheDunciad,"  the  "Epistles,"  and  "Satires" 
of  Pope  may  well  wonder  not  only  at  the  plain- 
ness, solidity,  and  effectiveness  of  the  diction, 
but  at  Pope's  instinct  for  words  that  were 
destined  to  survive.  Little  in  these  pieces  has 
become  antiquated.  Pope  instructs  us  well 
how  to  talk  strongly  to-day. 

Several  times  in  this  chapter  I  have  men- 
tioned successive  sections  of  Pope's  life.  They 
are  three.  Taking  that  life  as  extending  from 
1688  to  1744,  its  first  period  may  be  reckoned 
as  ending  with  the  beginning  of  his  work  on 
the  "Iliad  "  in  1715,  with  the  publication  of  his 
Collected  Works  in  1717,  and  the  death  of  his 
father  in  that  year,  or  with  his  settlement  at 
Twickenham  a  year  later.  This  is  his  period  of 
experiment  and  miscellaneous  verse.  His  period 
as  a  translator  and  editor  follows;  when  be- 
tween 1715  and  1726  Homer  and  Shakspere  put 
him  above  financial  need  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
His  third  period  running  from  1726  to  his  death 
—  his  "Moral"  period — shows  him  in  the 
easy  command  of  his  wealth,  time,  and  powers, 
aphorizing  on  manners,  criticizing  conduct,  and 
indulging  his  taste  for  gardening  and  quarrels. 


ALEXANDER  POPE  169 

These  roughly  outHned  periods,  it  will  be  seen, 
mark  off  literary  stages  rather  than  stages  of 
personal  life.  Pope's  life  contains  few  events 
distinct  from  literature.  All  is  subordinated  to 
that  great  end.  But  those  few  events  I  may  as 
well  bring  into  connection  with  his  literary 
development. 

I  have  said  that  his  father  moved  to  Binfield 
when  Pope  was  but  a  child.  Attempts  were 
made  in  these  early  years  to  procure  him  edu- 
cation. From  one  small  school  or  unimportant 
priest  he  moved  each  year  to  another.  Before 
he  was  twelve  he  found  the  best  teacher  he 
ever  knew,  himself.  A  boy  at  home,  he  set 
himself  to  serious  study  of  the  Latin  writers,  a 
few  of  the  French,  and  several  of  those  of  Eng- 
land, especially  Dryden.  The  Latin  Statins  he 
translated  into  verse,  often  with  felicity.  He 
spent  much  time  on  Virgil,  ever  afterwards  a 
favorite.  Many  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets 
he  read  in  translation,  and  he  himself  wrote 
four  thousand  lines  of  an  epic  on  Alexander  the 
Great.  Early,  too,  lie  gained  the  acquaintance 
of  several  cultivated  Catholic  families  of  liis 
neigh borhoo<l,  and  brought  himself  into  cor- 
respondence with  some  of  the  eminent  writers 
of  the  generation  which  was  just  passing  away. 


170    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

From  them  he  obtained  much  valuable  criti- 
cism and  practised  himself  also  in  giving  it. 
By  overstraining  that  feeble  health  of  his, 
Pope  was  able,  before  he  was  twenty-one,  to 
put  together  a  volume  of  Pastorals  which  was 
published  in  1709.  It  fixed  the  attention  of  the 
literary  world  on  the  youth  and  made  men 
understand  that  a  new  leader  had  appeared. 

But  with  growing  fame  came  interference 
with  study.  For  the  next  half-dozen  years  Pope 
was  much  in  London  literary  society.  He  be- 
came acquainted  with  Addison,  Swift,  Gay, 
Arbuthnot,  and  with  smaller  men  like  Tickell, 
Phillips,  and  Dennis,  over  whose  supposed 
iniquities  his  pen  was  to  be  long  busy.  Litera- 
ture was  at  this  time  largely  the  handmaid  of 
politics;  partisanship  and  strife  were  regular 
adjuncts  of  the  trade.  Great  writers,  like  Swift, 
did  not  hesitate  to  accept  political  pay.  When 
a  single  issue  so  dominated  the  life  of  the  nation 
as  did  that  of  the  English  Crown,  literature  and 
politics  could  not  be  kept  apart.  In  1714  Queen 
Anne  died.  In  1715  England  was  invaded  by 
the  Pretender.  From  that  time  till  the  death 
of  Pope  and  the  second  Stuart  rising  party 
spirit  ran  high.  Other  influences,  too,  cooper- 
ated to  disorganize  literature.    Literary  prop- 


ALEXANDER  POPE  171 

erty  was  imperfectly  guarded  and  unscrupu- 
lous publishers  were  common.  While  an  author 
usually  sold  his  manuscript  outright,  his  largest 
gain  often  came  from  the  great  men  to  whom 
he  dedicated  or  from  recognition  by  the  govern- 
ment itself. 

On  the  whole,  through  such  adverse  circum- 
stances Pope  moved  forward  in  his  career  with 
singular  independence  and  success.  He  put 
forth  in  these  years  his  "Pastorals,"  "The 
Messiah,"  "Windsor  Forest,"  the  "Essay  on 
Criticism,"  the  "Rape  of  the  Lock,"  "Elo- 
isa,"  the  "Unfortunate  Lady,"  and  nearly  as 
much  more  miscellaneous  verse — a  prodigious 
amount,  considering  its  quality,  his  health  and 
his  distractions  —  received  good  pay  for  it, 
put  himself  under  no  patron,  and  refused  pen- 
sions proffered  by  the  Government.  But  he 
was  not  so  successful  in  keeping  clear  of  petty 
squabbles.  In  these  years  quarrels  were  begun 
which  grew  steadily  wider  and  more  bitter 
till  they  blossomed  into  superb  amplitude  in 
the  gardens  of  "The  Dunciad."  Pope's  ner- 
vous constitution  made  him  irritable,  quick 
to  resent  a  fancied  slight,  disparagement,  or 
rivalry.  He  was  greedy  of  praise,  yet,  like 
most  of  us,  ashamed  to  acknowledge  it.    Wc 


172    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

cannot  truly  grant  him  what  he  claimed  for 
himself,  "That  if  he  pleased,  he  pleased  in 
manly  ways."  His  temper  was  rather  feminine 
than  masculine,  highly  sensitive  both  for  good 
and  ill,  not  too  scrupulous  about  petty  false- 
hoods, and  inclining  rather  to  covert  than  to 
open  agencies  for  accomplishing  what  he  de- 
sired. But  he  had  feminine  affections  also, 
tenderness  and  tenacity,  a  knack  for  knowing 
lovable  people,  like  Gay,  Garth,  and  Berkeley, 
or  for  dealing  tactfully  with  crabbed  ones  like 
Swift.  In  later  years  he  refused  an  honorary 
degree  from  Cambridge  University  —  a  proud 
distinction  for  one  who  had  been  kept  from 
education  as  a  boy  —  because  no  degree  was 
offered  also  to  his  friend  Warburton.  His  devo- 
tion to  his  indulgent  father,  and  especially  to 
his  mother  during  her  sixteen  years  of  aged 
widowhood,  was  extreme.  Servants  lived  long 
with  him.  When  Dennis,  his  bitterest  enemy, 
grew  old  and  poor,  friends  offered  him  a  benefit 
at  Drury  Lane,  for  which  Pope  wrote  the  pro- 
logue. Several  of  his  quarrels  were  envenomed 
by  scandalous  attacks  on  his  parents.  While 
cases  of  reprehensible  animosity  are  not  diffi- 
cult to  find  in  Pope's  stormy  career,  on  the 
whole  in  most  of  his  warfare  with  Grub  Street 


ALEXANDER  POPE  173 

our  sympathies  go  with  him.  He  stood  for  lit- 
erature pure  and  simple,  as  contrasted  with 
that  fostered  by  the  Government,  aristocratic 
society,  or  mercenary  booksellers. 

But  I  anticipate.  Much  of  the  independence 
I  have  been  describing  was  deliberately  planned 
and  secured  during  the  eleven  years'  drudgery 
of  his  second  period,  1715-1726.   It  is  amazing 
that  a  young  man,  little  more  than  twenty-five 
years  old,  and  known  to  have  but  a  slender 
acquaintance  with  Greek,  should  already  have 
gained  such  repute  as  to  secure  him  six  hundred 
subscribers  to  a  six-volume  translation  of  the 
"Iliad,"  costing  a  guinea  a  volume.   Counting 
what  the  publishers  also  paid,  he  took  in  about 
£5000    from    the    "Iliad"    alone.     For    the 
"Odyssey"  he  received  nearly   £4000  more, 
though  in  this  he  did  only  half  the  work,  letting 
out  the  remainder  to  his  assistants,  Broome 
and  Fenton.   And  what  a  masterpiece  he  pro- 
duced !  Though  its  magniloquent  sentences  are 
somewhat  out  of  the  taste  of  our  time,  what 
translation  of  the  "  Iliad  "  shows  such  sustained 
poetic  charm?   If  any  of  us  were  sentenced  to 
read  an  entire  Book  of  the  "Iliad"  at  a  sitting, 
to  what  translation  would  we  turn  so  soon  as  to 
Pope's?  Knowledge  of  the  language  from  which 


174    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

a  translation  is  made  is  immeasurably  less  im- 
portant than  a  knowledge  of  that  into  which. 
Bentley  might  well  complain  that  Pope  did  not 
understand  the  meaning  of  certain  words  and 
phrases  of  Homer's,  but  he  understood  —  what 
only  a  poet  could  —  how  to  write  a  page  that 
would  carry  his  reader  into  the  thick  of  the  fight. 

When  we  consider  the  greater  value  of  money 
in  Pope's  time,  it  is  evident  that  the  amount 
received  from  his  Greek  labors,  and  from  the 
less  important  editing  of  Shakspere,  made  him 
a  man  of  means.  He  was  at  least  affluent 
enough  to  write  henceforth  what  he  pleased,  to 
entertain  friends  agreeably,  to  amuse  himself 
with  gardening  or  grotto-building  at  Twicken- 
ham, and  to  be  able  to  place  a  stone  seat  or 
obelisk  wherever  it  gave  dignity  to  the  view. 
The  charming  villa  where  Pope  spent  the  last 
half  of  his  life  lay  on  the  bank  of  the  Thames  a 
dozen  miles  from  London.  Though  he  only 
hired  it,  every  reader  of  his  verse  or  letters  has 
shared  his  enjoyment  of  it. 

It  is  from  this  third  period  of  Pope's  life, 
1726-1744,  and  from  the  gardens  of  Twicken- 
ham, that  what  is  most  characteristic  and  valu- 
able in  his  poetry  proceeds.  That  is  not  a  com- 
mon case  with  poets.  The  writing  of  their  early 


ALEXANDER  POPE  175 

and  middle  years  is  ordinarily  their  best.  With 
advancing  age  imagination  is  apt  to  decay  and 
their  work  to  lack  freshness.  Pope's  poetic 
powers  developed  early  and  were  recognized 
early,  but  they  continued,  and  he  did  not  find 
the  true  field  for  his  genius  until  his  fame  was 
well  established.  During  this  third  period  he 
devoted  himself  almost  entirely  to  a  species  of 
writing  which  before  his  Homeric  days  he  had 
practised  but  slightly.  It  is  the  satiric  delinea- 
tion of  character  —  that  of  others  and  his  own 
—  not  realistically,  but  ever  as  illustrative  of 
some  fundamental  principle.  Beginning  with  a 
classification  of  all  the  tribe  of  fools  in  "The 
Dunciad,"  advancing  in  the  "Essay  on  Man" 
to  an  analysis  of  the  conditions  under  which 
humanity  everywhere  finds  itself  and  then, 
after  showing  in  the  "  Moral  Essays"  the  pecu- 
liar temptations  to  which  men,  women,  riches, 
and  learning  expose  us,  he  advances  to  those 
delicious  Horatian  pieces  where  audacious 
satire  shows  an  ease,  compactness,  and  incisive 
form  hardly  paralleled  elsewhere  in  English 
verse.  "At  every  word  a  reputation  dies,"  or  a 
graceful  compliment  is  fastened  on  a  frioTuI. 
Here  I'opc's  ])()Wcr  of  expression  reaches  its 
height.   The  pretty  banter  of  the  Rape  of  the 


176    FORIMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Lock  has  gone  on  to  force  and  pungency,  with 
no  loss  of  ease.  Throughout  the  whole  period 
we  detect  the  influence  of  Bolingbroke,  the 
philosophic  statesman,  who  in  1626  had  settled 
at  Dawley,  ten  miles  from  Twickenham,  and 
who  now,  after  the  departure  of  Swift  to  Ire- 
land, became  for  a  dozen  years  Pope's  guiding 
mind.  He  it  was  who  first  taught  Pope  that 
**the  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,"  and  it 
was  his  suggestion  which  prompted  the  Hora- 
tian  Satires.  With  the  ending  of  the  "Satires," 
in  1738,  Bolingbroke  left  Dawley  and  Pope 
wrote  no  more  poetry  except  a  fourth  Book  of 
"TheDunciad"in  1739. 

Of  the  remaining  years  of  Pope  when,  under 
the  guidance  of  the  scheming  and  pompous 
Bishop  Warburton,  he  busied  himself  with  the 
disgraceful  editing  of  his  letters  and  the  revision 
of  his  works,  it  is  fortunately  unnecessary  to 
speak.  Pope  had  matured  early  and  early  the 
restless  mind,  like  that  of  Dry  den's  "Achi- 
tophel," 

"Fretted  the  pigmy  body  to  decay 
And  o'erinformed  its  tenement  of  clay." 

He  died  in  his  fifty-sixth  year  at  Twicken- 
ham, unmarried,  leaving  most  of  his  property 
to  Martha  Blount,  who  had  been  his  friend  for 
thirty  years. 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

"The  Messiah"  shows  the  artificial  diction  with  which 
Pope's  work  began. 

A  couple  of  pages  should  be  read  from  the  "Essay  on 
Criticism,"  in  order  to  see  Pope's  early  epigrammatic 
style  in  its  extreme  form. 

Read  also  "The  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  especially  Part  III. 
and  Book  I  of  the  "Essay  on  Man,"  with  the  "Universal 
Prayer."  Among  the  "Moral  Essays,"  that  on  "The 
Characters  of  Men,"  and  among  the  "Satires"  the  "Epis- 
tle to  Arbuthnot"  and  that  to  Augustus. 

But  Pope  is  not  seen  to  best  advantage  in  his  continu- 
ous writing.  He  is  dimmed  by  his  own  brilliancy.  I  sub- 
join, therefore,  a  group  of  fragments,  chosen  almost  at 
random,  to  show  how  he  can  make  common  truth  shine: 

Fragments  from  Pope 

'T  is  with  our  judgments  as  our  watches,  none 
Go  just  alike,  yet  each  believes  his  own. 

Horace  still  charms  with  graceful  negligence 
And  without  method  talks  us  into  sense. 

Behold  the  child  by  nature's  kindly  law 
Pleased  with  a  rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw;   . 
Some  livelier  playtliing  gives  his  youth  delight, 
A  little  lou<ler,  but  as  empty  quite; 
Scarfs,  garters,  gold,  amuse  his  riper  stage, 
And  beads  and  prayer-books  arc  the  toys  of  age; 
Pleased  with  this  l)aul>lc  still,  as  that  before. 
Till  tired  he  sleeps,  and  life's  poor  play  is  o'er. 


178    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Heaven  first  taught  letters  for  some  wretch's  aid, 
Some  banished  lover  and  some  captive  maid. 

'T  is  education  forms  the  common  mind. 
Just  as  the  twig  is  bent  the  tree 's  inclined. 

WTio  shames  a  scribbler?  Break  one  cobweb  through. 
He  spins  the  slight  self-pleasing  thread  anew. 
Destroy  his  fib  or  sophistry  —  in  vain! 
The  creature 's  at  his  dirty  work  again, 
Throned  in  the  centre  of  his  thin  designs. 
Proud  of  a  vast  extent  of  flimsy  lines. 

You  beat  your  pate  and  fancy  wit  will  come. 
Knock  as  you  please,  there's  nobody  at  home. 

T  is  use  alone  that  sanctifies  expense. 

And  splendor  borrows  all  her  rays  from  sense. 

All  the  distant  din  the  world  can  keep 

Rolls  o'er  my  grotto,  and  but  soothes  my  sleep. 

Let  humble  Allen,  with  an  awkward  shame, 
Do  good  by  stealth  and  blush  to  find  it  fame. 

Feign  what  I  will,  and  paint  it  e'er  so  strong. 
Some  rising  genius  sins  up  to  my  song. 

My  head  and  heart  thus  flowing  thro'  my  quill, 

Verse-man  or  prose-man,  term  me  which  you  will, 

Papist  or  Protestant,  or  both  between. 

Like  good  Erasmus,  in  an  honest  mean. 

In  moderation  placing  all  my  glory. 

While  Tories  call  me  Whig,  and  Whigs  a  Tory. 


ALEXANDER  POPE  179 

Index-learning  turns  no  student  pale, 
Yet  holds  the  eel  of  science  by  the  tail. 

The  Muse  shall  sing,  and  what  she  sings  shall  last. 

Codrus  writes  on,  and  will  forever  write. 

Even  copious  Dryden  wanted  or  forgot 
The  last  and  greatest  art,  the  art  to  blot. 

The  gods,  to  curse  Pamela  with  her  prayers, 
Gave  the  gay  coach  and  dappled  Flanders  mares. 
The  shining  robes,  rich  jewels,  beds  of  state, 
And,  to  complete  her  bliss,  a  fool  for  mate; 
She  glares  in  balls,  front  boxes,  and  the  ring, 
A  vain,  unquiet,  glittering,  wretched  thing. 

Eternal  smiles  his  emptiness  betray. 

As  shallow  streams  run  dimpling  all  the  way. 

If  to  her  share  some  female  errors  fall. 
Look  in  her  face,  and  you  '11  forgive  them  all. 

Ask  you  why  Wharton  broke  through  every  rule? 
*T  was  all  for  fear  the  knaves  would  call  him  fool. 

For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest, 
Whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best. 

From  vulj^ar  bounds  witli  brave  disorder  part, 
And  snatch  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art. 

Me  let  the  teiuier  oflicc  long  engage 
To  rock  the  cradle  of  reposing  age, 


180    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

With  lenient  arts  extend  a  mother's  breath, 
Make  languor  smile  and  smooth  the  bed  of  death, 
Explore  the  thought,  explain  the  asking  eye, 
And  keep  awhile  one  parent  from  the  sky. 

Nature  and  nature's  laws  lay  hid  in  night. 
God  said,  "Let  Newton  be!"  and  all  was  light. 


VI 

William  Wordsworth 


VI 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH 

In  this  chapter  we  enter  a  new  world.  We  have 
left  the  age  of  reason,  the  orderly,  well-planned 
world  of  the  Classicists,  and  turn  to  one  which 
has  no  fear  of  disorder,  the  world  of  the 
Romanticists.  We  have  seen  how  the  men  who 
followed  Spenser  became  dissatisfied  with  his 
witcheries.  His  verse  was  too  sweet;  they 
wanted  a  taste  of  the  bitter.  Rousing  them- 
selves from  Spenser's  hypnotic  spell,  they 
eagerly  turned  to  mental  exertion.  Just  so  a 
reaction  set  in  against  Pope  and  wrought  an 
entire  overturn  of  the  classical  theory.  The 
revolution,  however,  was  longer  delayed  in  the 
case  of  Pope  and  was  more  fundamental.  Dur- 
ing his  life  Pope's  sway  was  little  contested. 
Indee<:l  if  wc  include  his  entire  life,  we  may  say 
that  Pope  ruled  English  literature  for  nearly  a 
century.  When  at  last  the  revolt  came,  under 
Wordsworth,  that  innovator  was  obliged  to 
spend  half  his  years  and  nearly  all  his  powers 
before  the  worth  of  what  he  was  doing  was 
recognized.    It  would  be  no  exaggeration  to 


184    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

say  that  it  took  two  political  revolutions  to 
bring  about  the  new  Romanticism :  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution  in  which  the  dignity  of  the 
individual  was  asserted,  and  the  earth-shaking 
French  Revolution  where  under  the  teaching 
of  Rousseau  the  common  instincts  of  our  nature 
were  championed  as  precious  and  safe.  Words- 
worth's work  it  was  to  present  imaginatively 
the  results  of  these  two  revolutions. 

To  understand  the  large  scope  of  that  work 
it  will  be  well  to  bring  before  our  minds  some 
general  traits  of  romantic  poetry  as  contrasted 
with  classical.  Not  that  these  traits  appear 
alike  in  all;  there  are  many  varieties.  We  must 
not  be  misled  by  lazy  labels  —  romantic,  clas- 
sical. Characteristics  of  the  one  occur  blended 
in  varying  degrees  with  those  of  the  other.  Yet 
it  remains  true  that  the  Classicists  as  a  school 
averted  their  gaze  from  half  of  human  ken,  and 
that  men  grew  discontented  with  their  narrow 
outlook,  believing  that  in  reality  the  half  which 
they  refused  to  see  was  the  more  important.  I 
will  then  sum  up  in  a  few  successive  sections 
the  chief  characteristics  of  the  romantic  poetry 
as  it  diverges  from  the  classical. 

(1)  The  obvious  one,  which  immediately 
strikes  the  attention  even  of  a  careless  reader, 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  185 

is  the  different  fields  from  which  their  subjects 
are  drawn.  The  Classicist  deals  with  mankind, 
especially  with  the  intellectual  men  and  women 
of  society.  He  enjoys  the  strife  of  tongues  and 
likes  to  observe  the  oddities  and  inconsisten- 
cies of  his  species.  He  is  a  social  being  and 
therefore  finds  his  dwelling-place  in  the  city. 
Exactly  the  opposite  is  the  case  with  the 
Romanticist.  His  field  is  the  country.  He 
cares  less  for  man,  at  least  for  man  apart  from 
nature.  Only  in  the  union  of  man  and  nature 
does  he  count  either  comprehensible.  Accord- 
ingly nature  pervades  the  whole  of  his  poetry. 
No  matter  if  he  professes  to  deal  with  men  and 
women  in  their  most  personal  relations,  he  pro- 
jects them  against  a  background  of  the  coun- 
try. It  will  be  objected  that  this  is  no  inven- 
tion of  the  Romanticists.  Nature  was  known 
long  before  the  eighteenth  century;  and  even 
during  that  century,  while  the  rationality  of 
man  was  exalted,  there  were  nature  poets  too. 
There  certainly  were  through  all  the  eight- 
eenth century.  But  when  examined  closely 
they  will  be  seen  to  resemble  the  Romanticists 
only  slightly.  These  men,  no  doubt,  prepared 
the  coming  change  but  did  not  in  themselves 
show  what  it  was  to  be.    Certain  poets  wrote 


186    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  nature  prompted  not  so  much  by  the  scenery 
around  them  as  by  their  recollections  of  Virgil. 
Virgil  had  loved  the  country  and  in  his  masterly 
"Georgics"  described  the  scenes  and  labors  of 
country  life.  His  great  name  sanctified  country 
poetry,  particularly  in  England  where  Latin 
authors  moulded  the  minds  of  the  young  in 
school  and  university.  Shenstone  and  Thomson 
show  much  of  this  tendency,  though  both  had 
also  a  genuine  love  of  nature.  Then  too  the 
English  have  always  hved  largely  out  of  doors 
and  outside  cities,  and  their  literature  might 
therefore  be  expected  to  make  frequent  men- 
tion of  the  plain  facts  of  the  country  —  soil, 
crops,  cattle,  sports,  storms,  sunshine  —  even 
when  the  writers  have  little  poetic  vision. 
Dyer,  Somerville,  Falconer,  are  such  reporters 
of  natural  fact,  and  to  a  considerable  extent 
Cowper  too.  But  there  is  poetry  nearer  to  the 
romantic  than  this.  No  movement  bursts 
forth  on  a  sudden.  There  is  always  a  prepara- 
tion, and  in  the  conditions  which  precede  we 
can  usually  detect  its  germs.  So  underneath 
the  established  poetry  of  man  a  poetry  is  grad- 
ually forming  which  looks  rather  in  a  Gothic 
than  in  a  classical  direction  and  feels  man  to 
be  so  mysteriously  allied  with  nature  that  ii^ 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  187 

nature  the  moods  of  man  find  themselves 
somehow  reflected.  We  are  all  familiar  with 
such  anticipative  poetry  in  the  writings  of 
Gray,  Collins,  Burns,  Blake.  All  these  men 
know  no  sharp  partition  between  the  worlds 
of  nature  and  of  spirit.  Man  lives  in  the  midst 
of  that  which  is  not  alien  to  him. 

(2)  It  is  this  view  of  nature,  scantily  repre- 
sented in  the  eighteenth  century  while  Pope 
ruled,  which  the  Romanticists  took  up  and 
carried  to  a  completeness  unknown  before.  For 
not  only  do  the  Romanticists  feel  themselves 
gladdened  through  contact  with  nature,  but  a 
certain  personal  presence  seems  ever  to  meet 
them  there.  The  country  is  therefore  holy 
ground.  There  God  abides.  Men  have  driven 
him  from  the  cities.  In  woods  and  hills  we  hear 
a  voice  which  answers  to  our  own.  The  Classi- 
cist conceives  of  God  as  the  Great  Artificer, 
"  the  great  first  cause,  least  understood,"  who 
ages  ago  set  the  world  running,  gave  it  fixed 
laws  and  then  withdrew  from  interference,  let- 
ting it  thereafter  care  for  itself.  And  certainly 
if  a  skilful  workman  could  construct  a  per- 
petual-motion machine,  he  might  thenceforth 
wisely  retire  from  business.  The  Romanlicist 
knows  nothing  of  such  a  retired  God.    To  his 


188    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

mind  God  is  immanent  in  nature,  not  sundered 
from  it.  To-day  he  is  as  genuinely  working 
there  as  ever  he  was.  So  closely  involved  is  he 
that  we  can  speak  of  him  as  if  he  were  nature 
itself,  of  nature  as  if  it  were  he. 

(3)  This  reverential  way  of  approaching  na- 
ture is  pretty  fundamental  in  romantic  poetry 
and  gives  to  it  another  special  mark,  mystery, 
the  sense  of  wonder.  Wonder  was  hardlj 
known  to  the  Classicists,  for  their  world  is  a 
place  of  well-defined  bounds.  They  touch  only 
those  sides  of  life  which  can  be  rationally  veri- 
fied, and  consequently  inhabit  a  world  as  clear 
as  day.  But  what  they  look  on  with  annoyance 
and  distrust  is  the  delight  and  place  of  abode 
of  the  Romanticist.  As  he  goes  forth  into  na- 
ture he  finds  everywhere  more  than  he  can  com- 
prehend. A  half -understood  friend  seems  to  be 
calling  and  to  find  an  answer  in  the  depths  of 
his  own  being.  He  does  not  refuse  to  listen  to 
the  appealing  voice  because  it  is  indistinct,  but 
joyously  acknowledges  that  mystery  encom- 
passes all  that  is  clear. 

(4)  Naturally  enough  where  such  a  sense  of 
wonder  is  at  work  enthusiastic  utterance  will 
follow.  The  Romanticist  honors  enthusiasm, 
which  Pope  and  his  companions  scorn.    To 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  189 

their  eye  it  shows  bad  breeding  and  would  be 
unpleasant  at  an  evening  party.  The  Romanti- 
cist, however,  dimly  perceiving  a  reality  greater 
than  his  fragmentary  understanding  can  grasp, 
is  stirred  to  enthusiasm  by  the  wonder  it  ex- 
cites. At  the  very  time  when  the  literary  and 
intellectual,  classes  of  England  never  mentioned 
enthusiasm  without  contempt,  other  classes 
were  shaping  by  its  use  some  of  the  greatest 
forces  of  the  age.  It  was  in  1739  that  John 
Wesley  opened  his  chapel  in  London,  from 
which  went  forth  a  band  of  religious  enthusiasts 
who  brought  a  new  dignity  into  daily  life  and 
lowered  that  of  those  hitherto  accounted  lead- 
ers. Through  them  religion  acquired  a  reality 
of  significance  for  the  personal  life  which  the 
fashionable  deism  of  the  Established  Church 
had  lacked.  The  age  was  starved  for  mystery 
and  enthusiasm.  It  knew  it  was  starved  and 
it  rewarded,  perhaps  unduly,  whoever  could 
supply  its  need.  Ossian's  strange  poetry  (1762) 
resounded  throughout  Europe.  And  about  the 
time  of  the  coming  of  Wordsworth  there  ap- 
peared a  fantastic  literature  of  wonder  in  the 
novels  of  Horace  Walpole,  Ann  Radcliffe,  and 
Monk  Lewis.  When,  too,  we  disparage  that 
sober  sense  to  which  the  Classicist  had  hold 


190    FOR^L\TR'E  TiTES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

and  react  in  favor  of  feeling  and  a  sense  of 
mysten',  we  are  in  danger  of  such  sentimen- 
talism  as  uttered  itself  in  Sterne's  "Senti- 
mental Journey"  and  Mackenzie's  "Man  of 
Feeling." 

(5)  In  whatever  direction  we  turn,  we  see  a 
momentous  revolution  preparing.  Its  outward 
manifestations  I  have  just  traced.  Its  central 
principle  appears  in  the  new  place  it  gives  to 
the  feelings  in  contrast  to  the  intellect.  Clear 
consciousness,  it  urged,  does  not  cover  the 
whole  of  life,  not  even  the  major  part  of  it.  The 
half-conscious  instincts  of  mankind  have  always 
been  his  surest  directors.  We  see  this  on  a 
broad  scale  in  the  great  popular  movements 
which  have  revolutionized  the  world.  These 
have  not  been  the  working  out  of  precise  plans 
of  action;  they  have  been  for  the  most  part 
blind  motions,  little  understood  by  those  who 
led  them.  Yet  how  vastly  significant!  Just  so 
in  private  life  the  common  m.an  who  follows 
his  fundamental  instincts  is  a  more  significant 
subjec-t  for  poetry  than  the  merely  intellectual 
man.  Classicism,  because  it  insisted  on  the 
supremacy  of  reason  was  interested  only  in 
superior  persons.  It  was  aristocratic.  Roman- 
ticism is  the  embodiment  of  democra<"v.    We 


^\TLIJAM  WORDSWORTH  191 

shall  hardly  discover  an  intellectual  figure  in 
the  poetry  of  Wordsworth.  Perhaps  we  may 
instance  "The  Happy  Warrior,"  or  Protesilaus, 
the  husband  of  Laodameia.  But  Wordsworth 
usually  deals  with  plain  men  and  women,  such 
as  Michael,  Margaret,  Matthew,  or  the  Leech 
Gatherer,  people  who  are  swayed  less  by  reason 
than  by  instincts  and  half-conscious  impulses. 
It  is  the  elemental  side  of  human  nature,  almost 
ignored  by  the  aristocratic  Classicists,  which 
now  attracts  reverence.  In  1765  Bishop  Percy 
published  his  "Reliques  of  English  Poetry," 
collecting  in  its  three  volumes  the  folk-songs, 
ballads,  and  half-instinctive  rhymes  through 
which  popular  feeling  had  been  expressing 
itself  for  several  centuries.  In  general  the  WTit- 
ers  were  unknown.  Ballads,  it  is  said,  have  no 
single  author.  They  voice  the  spirit  of  a  com- 
munity. And  even  if  this  spirit  acquires  occa- 
sionally a  single  mouthpiece,  he  is  of  conse- 
quence only  in  so  far  as  he  embodies  the 
thoughts  and  aspirations  of  a  multitude.  Lit- 
erary men  had  hitherto  looked  down  on  such 
verse,  as  lacking  in  art,  but  Bishop  Percy's 
volumes  came  at  a  fortunate  moment  and  were 
warmly  acclaimed.  Men  saw  here  anotlier 
source  of  poetry  than  the  Classicists  had  used. 


192    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

The  book  was  the  herald  of  the  romantic  move- 
ment. 

(6)  Such  a  changed  attitude  of  mind  re- 
quires enlarged  and  liberated  modes  of  ex- 
pression. The  poetic  medium  which  the  Classi- 
cists had  carefully  constructed  was  inadequate 
for  the  new  needs.  Pope  had  shaped  for  him- 
self a  perfect  instrument  in  his  couplet  of  ten- 
syllabled  iambic  lines,  rhyming  together  and 
rarely  running  over  into  the  next  couplet.  His 
diction,  too,  had  had  the  light  touch,  was  swift 
and  easy,  in  short  was  the  language  of  culti- 
vated life.  His  followers  could  not  be  expected 
to  equal  Pope's  delicacy.  His  heroic  couplet 
became  mechanically  rigid.  His  occasionally 
heightened  language  was  turned  into  poetic 
diction.  The  narrow  bounds  within  which 
eighteenth-century  emotion  was  content  to 
express  itself  seem  strange  to  us.  Perhaps  in 
aiming  at  perfection  one  must  accept  narrow 
bounds.  But  the  Romanticist  aims  at  nothing 
so  small  as  perfection.  He  seeks  the  infinite, 
which  never  can  be  perfected.  Accordingly  a 
poetic  instrument  less  constrained  in  compass 
is  needed  by  him.  The  couplet,  when  used,  is 
allowed  to  run  over;  blank  verse  is  coaxed  into 
many  a  new  cadence;  the  sonnet,  which  honors 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  193 

a  special  mood,  is  revived;  and  free  lyrical  forms 
spring  up  in  almost  as  great  variety  as  among 
the  followers  of  Donne. 

On  the  whole,  we  may  say  of  the  Romanti- 
cists what  Wordsworth  said  of  himself,  that 
they  "live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love.** 
The  Classicists,  on  the  contrary,  live  by  reason, 
epigram,  and  strife.  Yet  we  may  easily  do 
them  injustice.  We  mUst  by  no  means  imagine 
their  work  to  have  been  futile.  They  represent 
our  social  side  and  guard  the  standards  our 
race  has  set  up.  It  is  through  their  prized  quali- 
ties of  reason,  clearness,  and  precision  that  man 
is  able  to  live  with  man.  Their  great  office  it  is 
to  deal  with  the  organic  functions  of  society; 
they  merely  leave  out  of  account  the  individual 
human  being,  who  certainly  had  become  some- 
what self-absorbed  among  their  immediate 
predecessors.  He  it  is  who  is  now  restored  to 
his  rights  under  Wordsworth.  Not  that  so 
great  a  change  could  be  effected  by  any  single 
man.  I  have  shown  how  throughout  the  eight- 
eenth century,  especially  during  its  latter  half, 
converging  forces  were  moving  toward  what 
was  afterwards  known  as  Romanticism.  But 
Wordsworth  was  the  first  to  know  fully  their 
meaning.  He  completely  embodied  them,  illus- 


194    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

trating  them  in  his  poems  and  expounding 
them  in  his  Prefaces.  He  was  a  serious  scholar, 
too,  in  English  poetry,  acquainted  with  its 
whole  extent  and  devoting  a  long  life  to  its 
practice.  Above  all,  men  felt  behind  his  novel 
lines  a  weighty  personality,  which  ultimately 
compelled  their  admiration,  and  a  distaste  for 
the  thin  and  artificial  verse  which  preceded 
his.  He  may  well  be  taken  then  as  the  prophet 
of  the  new  movement.  The  circumstances  of 
his  life  were  favorable  to  a  fresh  poetic  vision. 

That  life  extended  from  1770  to  1850  and 
falls  into  four  periods:  (1)  the  period  of  his 
training,  up  to  1798;  (2)  his  mastery,  1798- 
1815;  (3)  his  decline,  1815-1842;  (4)  the  failure 
of  his  powers,  1842-1850.  Obviously  these 
periods  were  not  so  sharply  separated  in  his 
life  as  on  my  pages.  But  they  are  natural  dates, 
true  turning-points  in  his  career.  The  first 
ends  with  the  publication  of  the  "Lyrical  Bal- 
lads," the  second  with  his  two  volumes  of 
"Collected  Poems,"  the  third  with  his  appoint- 
ment as  Poet  Laureate.  Only  the  first  two  have 
importance  here. 

Wordsworth  was  born  in  Cockermouth,  a 
small  town  on  the  west  side  of  the  English  Lake 
District,  a  section  of  country  only  twenty-five 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  195 

miles  square,  yet  possessing  a  diversified  beauty 
not  easily  matched  elsewhere.  While  its  hills 
never  rise  above  three  thousand  feet,  they  are 
strikingly  precipitous  and  majestic  on  account 
of  their  slate  formation.  In  the  green  valleys 
at  their  feet  lie  lakes  both  small  and  large, 
sometimes  long  so  as  almost  to  give  the  im- 
pression of  a  stream;  while  those  that  Words- 
worth says  he  loves  best  are  so  completely 
round  as  to  forbid  the  thought  of  the  passage 
of  water.  This  round  effect  is  sometimes  empha- 
sized by  an  island.  While  the  lowlands  are 
luxuriant  with  trees  and  flowers,  the  hillsides 
are  bare  and  the  mountain  moors,  with  their 
occasional  rocky  tarns,  have  a  solemn  savagery. 
For  some  time  each  day  mists  float  about  the 
peaks,  down  whose  sides  rush  the  many  ghylls, 
or  small  streams,  whose  happy  voices  echo 
throughout  W^ordsworth's  pages.  One  who 
lives  in  these  valleys  is  seldom  without  the 
sound  of  falling  water. 

In  this  beautiful  land  Wordsworth  was  born 
and  here  lived  for  nine  tenths  of  his  life.  He 
was  born  in  the  common  ranks,  neither  in 
poverty  nor  in  riches,  but  in  that  happy  middle 
condition  where  the  worth  of  man  is  most 
apparent.    Ilis  father  was  the  business  agent 


19G    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale.  Wordsworth's  mother 
died  when  he  was  eight  years  old,  his  father 
five  years  later.  At  the  death  of  his  mother  he 
was  sent  to  the  village  of  Hawkshead  on  Esth- 
wait  Lake,  a  spot  even  more  impressive  than 
Cockermouth,  the  mountains  being  higher  and 
the  lake  of  peculiar  splendor.  Here  two  centu- 
ries earlier  had  been  founded  what  the  English 
call  a  Grammar  School  and  we  an  Academy,  or 
place  of  preparation  for  the  University.  Though 
not  large,  seldom  having  so  many  as  a  hundred 
pupils,  it  had  excellent  teachers  and  was  one 
of  the  best  schools  of  Northern  England.   All 
was  plain  in  school  and  village.   Wordsworth, 
a  boy  of  eight,  lived  in  the  cottage  of  a  motherly 
woman  of  the  working  class.  All  his  life  there- 
after was  shared  with  the  common  people  of 
this  district.    But  these  common  people  were 
not  insignificant.    In  the  Lake  Country  the 
land  is  generally  owned  by  him  who  works  it, 
an  exceptional  thing  in  England.  Most  English 
land  is  owned  by  gentlemen,  from  whom  the 
farmer  hires.    In  the  Lake  Country,  through 
some  curious  tradition,  it  has  come  about  that 
the  land  is  largely  owned  by  the  cultivators 
themselves,    who     proudly     call     themselves 
*' Statesmen,"  that  is,  owners  of  estates.  While, 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  197 

then,  they  are  peasantry,  living  in  humble 
thatched  cottages  rarely  two  stories  high,  they 
are  also  men  of  property  and  self-respect.  With 
this  independent  class,  who  had  formed  no 
habits  of  cringing  subservience,  Wordsworth 
grew  up.  Nine  years  he  spent  at  Hawkshead, 
and  in  the  first  Book  of  that  wonderful  poem, 
"The  Prelude,"  he  shows  us  the  growth  of  his 
mind  there.  He  describes  how  nature  laid  hold 
of  and  gradually  shaped  him,  until  he  came  to 
reverence  the  scenes  around  him  as  if  they  were 
personal  beings. 

There  was  little  ready  money  in  the  Words- 
worth family  at  this  time.  The  father's  prop- 
erty was  tied  up  in  a  lawsuit.  The  Earl  of  Lons- 
dale owed  the  estate  a  considerable  sum  for 
loans  and  arrears  of  wages,  but  the  payment 
was  evaded  through  excuse  and  postponement 
until  Wordsworth  was  thirty  years  old.  His 
uncles,  however,  advanced  the  means  for  his 
education  and  he  resided  at  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge,  from  1787  to  1791.  He  always  dis- 
parages the  English  University  training  and 
says  he  obtained  little  from  it.  But  such  state- 
ments require  qualification.  He  certainly  ac- 
quired a  good  ac(iuaintance  with  Latin  and 
English  literature,  learned  to  use  books,  and  to 


198    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

mingle  freely  with  men.  These  are  not  incon- 
siderable gains.  No  doubt,  coming  as  he  did  a 
solitary  boy  from  the  country,  accustomed  to 
brood  over  the  meaning  of  nature  and  having 
deeper  sympathies  with  it  than  with  mankind, 
he  remained  a  good  deal  detached.  The  spirit 
of  the  place  was  alien  to  him,  but  not  the  less 
beneficial.  The  vacations,  too,  of  an  English 
University,  being  as  long  as  the  term  time, 
gave  him  opportunity  to  return  to  his  loved 
mountains  and  there  renew  the  experiences  of 
his  early  years.  In  1790,  the  year  before  he  left 
the  University,  he  spent  the  summer  vacation 
on  a  pedestrian  tour  through  France  to  Swit- 
zerland, having  as  his  companion  a  fellow 
collegian,  Robert  Jones.  The  two  young  men 
had  little  money,  but  eager  hearts  and  sturdy 
legs.  They  were  good  observers.  Wordsworth 
had  early  fixed  his  mind  on  poetry.  When 
he  returned  he  brought  with  him  the  ma- 
terial for  a  long  poem  entitled  "Descriptive 
Sketches." 

This  poem,  however,  cannot  be  called  his 
first.  Another  had  been  begun  earlier,  of  sim- 
ilar character  and  about  equal  length.  During 
two  of  his  University  vacations  he  attempted 
to  picture  in  verse  the  scenes  which  moved  him, 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  199 

and  the  completed  poem  he  printed  in  the  same 
year  as  the  "Descriptive  Sketches  "  under  the 
title  of  "An  Evening  Walk."  The  two  in  their 
early  form  are  of  extreme  interest  for  the  stu- 
dent of  English  poetry,  for  they  stand  at  a 
parting  of  the  ways.  Youthful  they  are  in 
many  respects,  lacking  in  structure,  and  often 
feeble  in  execution;  they  show  their  writer  in 
transition  from  the  ideals  of  Classicism  to 
those  of  Romanticism.  Their  verse  is  the  closed 
couplet;  their  language,  the  artificial  poetic 
diction  of  the  followers  of  Pope.  But  their 
substance  is  purely  realistic.  Nature,  not  man, 
is  their  theme.  The  poet's  eye  is  continually 
on  its  object.  Everything  is  specific,  the  gener- 
alizing epigram  seldom  used.  Indeed  so  far  do 
they  go  in  accurate  observation  that  poetry  is 
often  overlooked.  The  marks,  abundant  here 
of  the  type  of  poetry  which  Wordsworth  was 
to  spend  his  life  in  combating,  are  the  more 
striking  because  so  speedily  outgrowTi.  Five 
years  later,  when  the  "Lyrical  Ballads"  were 
published,  no  trace  of  the  earlier  manner  re- 
mained. Unfortunately  most  readers  are  un- 
able to  observe  the  change.  Later  editions  of 
both  poems  are  thoroughly  revised.  Two 
poems  of  quite  ordinarj^  merit  have  taken  the 


200    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

place  of  two  whose  historic  importance  was 
exceptional. 

"An  Evening  Walk"  was  dedicated  to  his 
sister,  Dorothy.  Of  all  the  circumstances  in 
Wordsworth's  life  fitting  him  for  his  difficult 
task,  the  influence  of  that  remarkable  woman 
must  be  counted  the  most  fortunate.  A  year 
and  a  half  younger  than  her  brother,  she  shared 
his  thoughts  and  hopes  from  childhood.  Out- 
ward intercourse  was  interrupted  for  a  time  by 
his  life  in  Hawkshead,  Cambridge,  and  France. 
Yet  even  then  letters  kept  them  united.  When 
he  settled  in  England  his  sister  joined  him  and 
was  not  again  parted  from  him  for  more  than 
fifty  years.  Many  who  knew  them  both  thought 
her  the  more  original  poetic  genius.  She  had 
more  ardor  than  her  brother,  was  more  swiftly 
observant,  and  no  less  sure  in  her  choice  of 
wbrds.  But  she  was  content  to  merge  her  tal- 
ents in  his.  She  criticized  all  he  wrote,  often 
suggested  subjects,  discussed  plans  of  develop- 
ment, and  frequently  furnished  admirable  lines 
for  his  poems.  I  have  her  copy  of  "An  Evening 
Walk."  Many  passages  are  rewritten  in  her 
hand,  and  in  later  editions  Wordsworth  adopted 
most  of  the  changes  there  proposed.  He  was 
never  tired  of  acknowledging  his  obligations 
to  her. 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  201 

"She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears. 
And  humble  cares  and  delicate  fears, 
A  heart  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears. 
And  love  and  thought  and  joy." 

For  one  naturally  so  solitary  as  he,  and  ren- 
dered still  more  so  by  his  aggressive  task,  her 
stimulating  ^  sympathy  was  of  inestimable 
worth. 

Immediately  on  leaving  the  University, 
Wordsworth  went  abroad  again.  A  vagrant 
element  was  ever  deep  in  him.  He  was  way- 
ward and  did  not  like  to  live  by  plan.  "This 
one  day"  he  was  ever  ready  to  "give  to  idle- 
ness." For  books  he  never  greatly  cared, 
but  thought  his  mind  fed  best  "in  a  wise  pas- 
siveness."  Frequent  journey ings  were  really 
his  books,  journeyings  mostly  on  foot.  So  for 
half  a  dozen  years  after  graduation,  poor 
though  he  was,  he  chose  no  definite  career.  His 
uncles  pressed  him  to  enter  the  Church.  He 
neither  did  so  nor  refused,  but  with  other 
dreams  in  mind  turned  back  to  France.  And 
here  once  more  his  usual  good  fortune  attended 
him,  permitting  him  personal  experience  of 
that  tremendous  awakening  of  a  people.  He 
tells  us  in  "The  Prelude"  how  now  for  the 
first  time  he  felt  the  worth  of  man.  Unlike  most 


202    FORMATRT  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

of  us,  lie  had  known  nature  and  lived  in  com- 
munion with  her  long  before  he  discovered 
man. 

The  year  which  Wordsworth  now  spent  in 
France  was  a  momentous  one  in  the  Hfe  of  the 
French  nation.   Instructed  by  a  young  French 
Heutenant,    Beaupuis,    Wordsworth    heartily 
accepted  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  and 
seriously  considered  joining  the  Club  of  the 
Gironde.  The  influence  of  Rousseau  was  keenly 
felt  and  has  left  its  permanent  mark  on  his 
poetry.  As  he  seemed  to  see  a  new  race  of  man- 
kind arising  around  him,  generous,  free  from 
institutional    control,    bent    on    giving    equal 
opportunities  to  all,  with  warm  mystic  aspira- 
tions substituted  for  doctrinal  beliefs,  his  heart 
burned  to  work  a  similar  democratic  revolution 
in  poetry.  For  one  brought  up  among  the  inde- 
pendent population  of  Cumberland  there  was 
nothing  absurd  in  French  ideals  of  equality. 
But  easy  too  it  became  under  these  laxer  ideals 
to  let  self-expression  triumph  over  moral  re- 
straint.   Professor  Harper  has  shown  on  in- 
dubitable evidence  that  during  this  year  of 
emancipation  a  French  girl  bore  him  a  daughter. 
Those  who  think  of  Wordsworth  as  cold  and 
formal  are  misled,  I  think,  by  his  lack  of  humor 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  203 

and  his  ability  to  live  alone.  At  any  rate  the 
democratic  fervor  which  burst  into  full  con- 
sciousness during  this  year  in  France,  repre- 
sents most  of  what  distinguishes  Wordsworth. 
As  that  democratic  sentiment  decayed  in  later 
years,  most  of  his  powers  went  with  it.  During 
his  second  period  it  was  helpfully  attended,  but 
not  suppressed,  by  other  interests. 

Funds  failing,  Wordsworth  was  obliged  to 
return  to  England.  He  came  home  enthusiastic 
for  popular  sovereignty  and  found  his  country 
preparing  to  declare  war  on  it.  The  shock  was 
severe.  He  tells  us  that  for  some  time  he  could 
not  hear  of  a  victory  of  the  French  over  his 
own  people  without  a  throb  of  exultation. 
Worst  of  all,  the  Revolution  itself  began  to 
disappoint  him.  Wild  excesses  broke  out. 
Chaotic  liberty  set  free  the  brute  in  man.  Yet 
the  repressive  measures  of  his  own  government 
disturbed  him  hardly  less.  In  this  season  of 
perplexity  he  came  under  the  influence  of 
William  Godwin,  the  doctrinaire  socialist,  who 
would  reconstruct  society  according  to  a  ra- 
tional plan.  Popular  instincts,  which  Words- 
worth had  hitherto  honored,  were  to  be  cast 
away  and  rei)laced  by  calculations  of  pleasure 
and  pain.    Teachings  so  at  issue  with  Words- 


204    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

worth's  natural  beliefs  induced  in  him  a  sort 
of  pessimism  which  lasted,  it  is  true,  but  a  few 
years.  It  is  traceable  in  such  poems  as  "Guilt 
and  Sorrow,"  the  strange  tragedy  of  "The 
Borderers,"  and  in  the  denunciations  so  fre- 
quent afterwards  of  the  analyzing  intellect.  To 
win  peace  and  hope  once  more  he  set  himself 
to  a  serious  study  of  society  and  the  sources 
from  which  happiness  springs.  Happiness  had 
been  somehow  missed  in  France.  Wordsworth 
came  to  believe  that  it  cannot  be  attained 
through  legislation  or  by  changes  in  social 
forms.  These  lie  outside  man,  while  the 
grounds  of  happiness  are  within.  Inventions 
do  not  necessarily  bring  happiness,  though 
adding  to  the  comfort  and  ease  of  ordinary 
life.  Intellect  does  not  insure  it,  nor  wealth, 
nor  any  of  the  things  the  vulgar  follow.  It 
springs  from  a  different  soil,  the  soil  of  a  pre- 
pared heart.  When  we  train  those  fundamen- 
tal instincts  which  ally  us  with  God,  with 
nature,  with  our  fellowmen,  to  be  simple, 
strong,  responsive,  we  shall  be  happy  and  the 
State  prosperous. 

In  the  years  1795-1798  Wordsworth  fash- 
ioned his  gospel  and  dedicated  himself  to  pro- 
claim it.    By  purification  of  the  emotions  he 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  205 

will  bring  men  such  joy  and  freedom  as  they 
have  never  known  before.  The  poet's  office  is 
now  seen  to  be  divine.  Into  it  Wordsworth 
pours  all  the  enthusiasm  of  the  revolutionary 
time  but  adds  to  it  judgment,  poise,  and  con- 
secration. Hardly  in  any  other  poet  has  so 
penetrating"  an  expression  been  given  to  the 
familiar  aspects  of  nature,  the  homeliness  of 
domestic  life,  and  the  sense  of  an  encompassing 
power  always  attending  us  with  its  love.  A 
response  to  that  love,  expressed  in  joyous 
acceptance  of  nature  and  human  life,  is  open 
to  all. 

To  the  proclamation  of  these  doctrines  in 
poetry,  their  only  fit  medium,  Wordsworth  at 
once  addressed  himself.  His  sister  gave  him 
hearty  sympathy  and  a  friend  provided  the 
means.  For  a  year  or  two  after  returning  from 
France,  Wordsworth  had  seen  much  of  a  young 
Cumberland  man,  Raisley  Calvert,  who,  dying 
in  1795,  left  Wordsworth  nine  hundred  pounds. 
To  Calvert  lovers  of  Wordsworth  owe  a  monu- 
ment, for  he  it  was  who  made  this  soul-renew- 
ing poetry  possible.  The  little  income  from 
the  Wordsworth  estate  which  had  hitherto 
enabled  him  to  live  without  occupation  was 
now  exhausted.   Had  it  not  been  for  Calvert's 


206    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

opportune  bounty  the  poet,  just  when  he  had 
discovered  his  sacred  calHng,  must  have  been 
forced  into  some  bread-winning  profession. 
Calvert  saved  him  for  us.  The  sum  was  small; 
but  it  made  a  poetic  career  possible  for  one 
who  could  live  as  peasants  live.  In  1795  he 
hired  a  house  in  Dorsetshire  on  the  south  coast 
of  England,  and  there  his  sister  joined  him. 
By  close  economy,  Calvert's  gift  met  all  their 
needs  till  the  settlement  of  the  Lonsdale  claim, 
six  years  later. 

At  their  home  in  Dorsetshire  the  pair  were 
visited  in  1796  by  Coleridge,  and  a  lifelong 
and  mutually  advantageous  friendship  was 
begun.  No  one  else  except  his  sister  ever 
brought  Wordsworth  such  intellectual  stimu- 
lus as  this  learned,  original,  ill-ordered,  and 
lovable  fellow  poet;  and  to  Coleridge  Words- 
worth's sanity  was  a  constant  protection.  In 
order  to  be  near  the  new  friend  the  Words- 
worths  moved  the  following  year  to  Alfoxden 
on  Bristol  Channel,  where  Coleridge  was  then 
living.  Here  the  three  planned  the  momentous 
volume  destined  to  bring  a  new  poetic  hope  to 
mankind.  In  remembrance  of  Bishop  Percy's 
revelation  of  the  precious  poetry  growing  up 
unnoticed  among  the  common  people,  it  was 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  207 

to  be  called  a  book  of  Ballads;  while  in  con- 
trast with  the  formal  didactic  verse  of  the 
eighteenth  century  it  was  to  be  Lyrical.  Its 
aim  was  to  exhibit  our  humdrum  world  as 
filled  with  sources  of  wonder,  the  supernatural 
penetrating  it  more  richly  and  usually  than 
unheeding  men  suppose.  This  aim  was  to  be 
effected  in  two  ways.  Coleridge,  by  the  witch- 
ery and  simplicity  of  his  language,  was  to  give 
an  air  of  probability  to  the  marvellous;  Words- 
worth was  to  show  the  presence  of  the  mysteri- 
ous in  occurrences  of  daily  life.  Both  alike 
would  break  through  the  benumbing  influence 
of  custom,  would  restore  the  lost  sense  of  won- 
der, and  so  give  back  to  grown  men  and  women 
the  freshness  of  interest  which  the  child  feels 
in  everything  he  sees.  With  large  assistance 
from  Dorothy  Wordsworth  the  friends  set  to 
work,  and  by  1798  the  volume  was  ready  for 
publication.  It  may  well  be  called  the  Magna 
Charta  of  modern  poetry.  In  it  the  modern 
mind  at  last  finds  itself.  Here  every  one  may 
read  the  Wordsworthian  gospel  of  "joy  in 
widest  commonalty  spread." 

The  tentative  period  of  Wordsworth's  life 
was  now  over.  Henceforth  he  knew  clearly 
what  he  wished  to  do,  and  for  the  next  fifteen 


208    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

years  felt  himself  possessed  of  power  to  do  it. 
As  soon  as  the  epoch-making  volume  was  out, 
Wordsworth  sought  retirement.  Writing  al- 
ways exhausted  him,  and  he  now  needed  time 
for  mental  brooding  after  so  much  production. 
He  spent  the  winter  at  the  small  town  of  Goslar 
in  Germany,  producing  there  little  beside  the 
Lucy  series  of  poems.  Returning,  he  sought  to 
establish  himself  with  his  sister  in  some  eco- 
nomical spot  where  the  country  around  should 
be  beautiful  and  the  people  persons  of  worth. 
For  his  purposes  nothing  could  be  better  than 
Dove  Cottage  at  Grasmere,  in  the  centre  of 
the  Lake  Country.  Here  he  lived  for  the  nine 
years,  1799-1808,  and  here  much  of  his  best 
poetry  was  written.  The  cottage  still  stands, 
hardly  superior  to  its  neighbors,  with  its  small 
rooms,  stone  floors,  thatched  roof,  and  small 
hillside  garden  in  the  rear;  though  now  modern 
houses  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road  cut  off 
its  former  view  of  Grasmere  W^ater.  It  has 
been  bought  by  friends  of  Wordsworth  and 
turned  into  an  admirable  memorial  of  him,  his 
household  furnishings  replaced,  and  collec- 
tions of  his  books,  pictures,  and  letters  suitably 
displayed. 

In  1801  the  lawsuit  with  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  209 

was  settled  and  Wordsworth  received  £8500. 
"VSTien  one  remembers  that  money  at  that  time 
was  worth  several  times  what  it  is  to-day,  it  is 
evident  that  Wordsworth  had  now  a  compe- 
tence for  life.  Hitherto  only  by  the  strictest 
economy  could  he  maintain  himself  and  his 
sister.  Now,  just  as  his  means  were  about  ex- 
hausted, this  large  sum  became  his.  The  follow- 
ing year  he  married  Mary  Hutchinson,  a  friend 
of  his  sister's  and  a  former  schoolmate  of  his 
own  at  Hawkshead.  A  happy  marriage  it 
proved.  She  was  an  intellectual  companion  of 
her  husband,  quiet,  patient  and  believing. 
Companionship  with  two  admiring  women, 
each  endowed  with  more  earnestness  than 
humor,  profoundly  affected  Wordsworth's  life 
for  good  and  for  ill.  The  family's  means  were 
increased  in  1813  by  Wordsworth's  appoint- 
ment as  distributor  of  stamps  for  Westmor- 
land, and  in  this  year  he  moved  from  Grasmere 
to  the  neighboring  village  and  to  the  stately 
residence  of  Rydal  Mount,  where  he  remained 
till  his  death.  Here  in  1814  he  published  "The 
Excursion,"  and  in  1815  issued  the  collected 
edition  of  his  poems,  with  its  elaborate  Preface 
in  defense  of  his  poetic  theories. 

With  these  publications  Wordsworth's  sec- 


210    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

ond  period,  his  period  of  Mastery,  comes  to  an 
end.  Of  most  poets  it  may  be  said  that  half  of 
their  work  is  more  than  the  whole.  But  of 
none  is  this  more  true  than  of  Wordsworth  and 
Browning.  Both  are  burdened  with  a  mass  of 
indifferent  verse  which  seriously  obscures  the 
excellence  of  the  remainder.  While  Words- 
worth occasionally  produced  good  poetry  after 
1815,  especially  in  sonnet  form,  one  who  would 
estimate  his  importance  may  wisely  pass  it  by 
and  accept  only  the  earlier.  Were  half  of  all 
Wordsworth  wrote  destroyed,  he  would  be 
generally  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  three 
or  four  most  original  poets  of  our  language. 

Several  causes  combined  to  lessen  his  poetic 
power  at  a  time  when  life  was  only  half  spent. 
The  first  splendor  of  a  poet's  work  is  apt  to 
grow  dim  with  time,  and  Wordsworth  matured 
early.  Even  in  1798  when  writing  "Tintern 
Abbey"  he  noticed  that  his  youthful  intoxica- 
tion with  the  sensuous  beauty  of  nature  was 
giving  way  to  reflection: 

"I  cannot  paint 
What  then  I  was.   The  sounding  cataract 
Haunted  me  Uke  a  passion;  the  tall  rock, 
The  mountain,  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood. 
Their  colors  and  their  forms,  were  then  to  me 
An  appetite;  a  feeling  and  a  love 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  211 

That  had  no  need  of  a  remoter  charm 
By  thought  supphed,  nor  any  interest 
Unborrowed  from  the  eye.   That  time  is  past." 

He  continued  to  speak  of  this  half-regretted 
change  during  the  next  dozen  years.  His  inter- 
est was  turning  more  and  more  from  the  emo- 
tion excited  by  concrete  objects  to  abstract 
thought  about  them.  Nor  was  this  altogether 
loss.  The  vividness  of  his  poetry  suffered,  but 
there  came  a  breadth  of  view,  a  sobriety  of 
judgment,  an  ability  to  meet  men  and  writers 
of  unlike  kinds,  and  a  certain  statesmanship  in 
dealing  with  public  questions  beyond  the  range 
of  his  restricted  youth.  In  many  respects 
Wordsworth  was  developing  as  a  man  while 
declining  as  a  poet. 

But  on  the  contrary,  many  admirers  of 
Wordsworth  think  that  a  certain  moral  decline 
in  the  man  attended  that  in  the  poet  and  was 
largely  responsible  for  it.  We  have  seen  how 
ardent  was  the  democratic  fervor  of  his  early 
years.  The  September  Massacres  occurred 
while  he  was  in  France.  He  excused  them  and 
kept  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Revolution.  As 
late  as  1798  he  was  an  object  of  suspicion  to 
the  English  Government  on  account  of  his 
French  sympathies  and  radical  associates.    In 


212    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  year  he,  Coleridge,  and  Southey  seriously 
planned  leaving  England  for  America  and 
establishing  a  socialist  colony  there.  The 
companions  of  his  youth  were  mostly  children 
of  humble  parentage  and  for  many  years  his 
home  was  Dove  Cottage.  The  ordinary  lan- 
guage of  common  people  he  thought  had  more 
poetry  in  it  than  that  of  the  learned  and  refined. 
In  short  his  sympathies  and  poetry  were  given 
to  the  multitude.  When  the  liberal  statesman 
Fox  died  in  1806  Wordsworth  wrote  an  an- 
guished lament: 

"Sad  was  I,  even  to  pain  deprest,  — 
Importunate  and  heavy  load." 

Yet  during  the  latter  half  of  his  life  he  was  a 
Tory  of  the  most  extreme  sort.  He  held  govern- 
ment offices,  accepted  a  pension,  issued  elec- 
tion manifestoes  in  behalf  of  Tory  candidates, 
and  opposed  all  attempts  at  popular  education. 
No  wonder  that  with  such  a  changed  mind 
came  a  transformation  of  his  poetry.  While 
its  technical  excellence  remained  as  high  as 
ever,  its  life  was  gone.  "Ecclesiastical  Son- 
nets'* took  the  place  of  *' Peter  Bell"  and 
"Lucy  Gray." 

Such  is  the  indictment  which  Browning  has 
poetized  in  his  "Lost  Leader."  Most  lovers  of 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  213 

Wordsworth  will  regretfully  confess  that  it  has 
some  justification.  Yet  even  so,  it  is  well  to 
examine  the  honorable  influences  in  Words- 
worth's character  and  in  the  condition  of  the 
time  which  might  draw  him  in  the  aristocratic 
direction.  Suggestions  of  corrupt  influence  are 
not  even  plausible.  No  favor,  office,  or  pension 
could  make  a  man  so  austere  swerve  from  what 
he  approved.  His  danger  lay  in  an  opposite 
direction.  Throughout  life  he  was  too  insistent 
on  his  own  ways  and  too  obstinate  in  holding 
to  beliefs  once  fixed.  Coleridge's  opinions 
underwent  as  great  a  change  as  those  of  his 
friend,  though  he  received  no  such  govern- 
mental favor.  Wordsworth's  change  from  a 
group  of  democratic  ideas  to  an  aristocratic 
requires  an  explanation  more  subtle  than 
Browning  has  offered. 

As  regards  the  shifting  of  his  sympathies  in 
the  great  war,  from  the  French  side  to  the 
English,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Revolution 
abandoned  him  rather  than  he  the  Revolution. 
During  his  stay  in  France  he  belonged  to  the 
party  of  the  Girondists.  This  was  ovcrthrowri 
by  the  Jacobins  and  most  of  its  members  were 
guillotined.  The  Jacobins  in  turn  became  dis- 
organized; and  after  a  period  approaching  anar- 


214    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

chy  power  was  seized  by  Napoleon.  While  the 
early  Revolution  followed  the  dream  of  a  world 
to  be  set  free,  the  later  sought  to  impose  the 
will  of  one  man  on  all  Europe.  The  incompet- 
ence of  French  radicalism  to  organize  itself, 
without  falling  into  the  hands  of  a  dictator, 
naturally  bred  distrust  over  radicalism  in 
general.  Wordsworth  expressed  his  detestation 
of  Napoleon  in  powerful  fashion,  and  most 
men  to-day  will  agree  with  him  in  thinking 
England  the  champion  of  true  freedom  during 
the  Napoleonic  wars.  But  those  wars  were 
fought  by  the  Tory  party,  the  party  of  order, 
which  gained  in  approval  among  sensible  men 
as  chaotic  liberalism  became  discredited.  It 
is  true  that  Wordsworth,  always  a  passionate 
lover  of  order,  endured  with  too  little  indigna- 
tion, like  most  of  his  countrymen,  the  harsh, 
repressive  measures  of  the  Government.  Eng- 
land was  in  a  not  unreasonable  panic.  Many 
good  men  suffered  in  it.  It  damaged  Words- 
worth permanently. 

To  such  damage  Wordsworth  was  constitu- 
tionally predisposed,  not  merely  by  his  love 
of  order,  but  by  his  distrust  of  knowledge  and 
human  reason.  lie  who  holds  our  half  conscious 
instincts  to  be  our  most  precious  possession 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  215 

will  not  be  zealous  for  popular  education,  espe- 
cially in  a  country  where  it  has  never  been 
tried.  Wordsworth,  it  must  be  remembered, 
came  to  acquaintance  with  the  world  of  nature 
long  before  he  knew  that  of  man.  To  institu- 
tions, therefore,  those  huge  agencies  of  social 
life  most  nearly  resembling  powers  of  nature, 
he  always  attached  more  importance  as  guides 
than  he  granted  to  individual  initiative.  It  is 
not  strange  then  that  in  studying  the  welfare 
of  the  poor  and  humble,  in  whom  he  never  lost 
interest,  he  doubted  whether  their  happiness 
would  be  promoted  by  starting  the  questioning 
spirit.  He  had  always  set  great  value  on  the 
blind  affections  connected  with  the  home,  the 
land,  the  sheep,  the  hills;  and  with  advancing 
years  he  came  to  distrust  whatever  brought 
personal  ambition  among  the  working  classes 
into  conflict  with  these.  The  Church  itself. 
Professor  Harper  thinks,  he  valued  more  as  an 
institution  and  a  social  force  than  as  a  stimulus 
to  personal  piety.  Whether  we  approve  these 
tendencies  in  Wordsworth  or  condemn  them, 
it  is  only  fair  to  notice  that  they  imply  no 
sudden  change  of  sentiment,  but  are  to  a  large 
degree  developments  of  much  that  was  present 
in  his  early  beliefs. 


216    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Unfortunate  developments  I  call  them,  espe- 
cially as  occurring  at  a  time  when  with  advanc- 
ing years  his  mind  was  stiffening,  concrete 
imagination  and  delight  in  natural  beauty 
growing  less,  inclination  to  abstract  thought 
increasing,  and  an  established  position  in  soci- 
ety, property,  and  poetic  fame  removing  some- 
thing of  the  stimulus  to  creative  work.  It  is 
sad  to  notice  how  in  Wordsworth's  case  his 
reputation  as  a  poet  advanced  about  in  propor- 
tion as  his  powers  declined.  Through  most  of 
his  second  period,  the  period  of  Byron's  domi- 
nance, he  was  laughed  at  or  comprehended 
merely  by  local  coteries.  But  in  his  third  and 
declining  period  his  reputation  had  so  far  ad- 
vanced that  Oxford  crowned  him  with  her 
highest  degree.  When  four  years  later  the 
Laureateship  became  vacant,  it  was  pressed 
upon  him.  He  at  first  refused  it,  on  the  ground 
of  failing  powers;  but  being  urged  as  the 
acknowledged  head  of  English  poetry  and  as 
the  natural  successor  to  his  friend  Sou  they,  he 
accepted.  Curiously  enough  in  the  previous 
year  a  young  poet,  Alfred  Tennyson,  published 
two  volumes  which  absorbed  the  attention  of 
England  and  made  other  poetry  seem  for  a 
time  insipid. 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  217 

A  few  closing  words  are  needed  to  meet  a 
current  misconception  of  Wordsworth.  Be- 
cause the  poor  and  ignorant  appear  so  fre- 
quently in  his  pages,  he  is  often  supposed  to  be 
the  poet  of  a  single  class.  And  this  impression 
is  strengthened  by  his  insistence  that  the  proper 
diction  for  poetry  is  a  selection  from  the  lan- 
guage of  common  life.  As  well,  however,  might 
Christ  be  understood  as  addressing  his  Gospel 
to  the  poor  man  alone.  The  aim  in  both  cases 
is  the  same.  The  restrictions  of  circumstance 
are  counted  unimportant  and  man  is  addressed 
merely  as  man.  But  it  is  held  that  manhood 
is  more  apt  to  appear  in  its  simplicity  among 
the  poor  and  lowly  than  among  those  entangled 
in  the  conventionalities  of  artificial  society. 
Yet  it  is  manhood,  after  all,  not  poverty  that 
is  valued. 

A  striking  evidence  that  Wordsworth  was 
unwilling  to  confine  himself  to  any  class  is  seen 
in  his  avoidance  of  dialect.  Dialect  poetry  he 
admired  when  used  by  Burns,  whose  book  was 
published  twelve  years  before  the  "Lyrical 
Ballads."  With  the  beautiful  dialect  of  the 
Lake  Country  he  was  familiar  from  childhood. 
But  dialect  is  the  mark  of  a  special  community 
and  a  special  class;  and  while  according  well 


218    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

with  the  character  of  the  Scotch  ploughman, 
would  have  obscured  the  broader  aims  of 
Wordsworth.  Unlike  the  Romanticists,  he  is 
interested  in  those  traits  which  draw  men 
together  rather  than  in  those  which  bring  per- 
sonal distinction.  His  figures,  therefore,  like 
those  of  the  Classicists,  are  typical,  and  char- 
acters of  marked  individuality  do  not  appear. 
Too  little  attention,  in  my  judgment,  has  been 
paid  to  the  avoidance  of  dialect  by  one  whose 
interest  in  the  plain  man  is  so  manifest. 

With  the  development  of  romantic  poetry 
vmder  Tennyson  and  Browning  the  number  of 
Wordsworth's  readers  grew  steadily  less,  and 
he  has  never  regained  the  favor  of  the  multi- 
tude. But  that  is  largely  because  his  work,  like 
that  of  Pope,  was  so  fully  accomplished  that 
its  results  have  been  taken  up  into  the  uncon- 
scious mind  of  our  race.  In  every  community, 
too,  single  silent  devotees  may  still  be  found 
who  make  of  him  their  spiritual  guide.  Like 
his  loved  master,  Milton,  he  is  a  poet  for  our 
maturity,  to  whom  we  turn  when  the  heedless 
and  disappointing  exuberance  of  youth  is 
passed.  Then  his  calm  tones  of  wise  optimism 
renew  for  us  the  sources  of  joy.  We  catch  in 
them    echoes    of   Rousseau    and    of    Marcus 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  219 

Aurelius.  Or  rather,  going  back  farther  still, 
in  his  summons  to  the  simple  life  and  to  rever- 
ence for  the  lowly  we  hear  much  of  the  message 
of  Jesus. 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

Matthew  Arnold's  "Selections  from  the  Poems  of 
Wordsworth"  in  the  "Golden  Treasury"  series  are  so 
excellent  that  no  better  advice  can  be  given  to  one  who 
seeks  acquaintance  with  this  poet  than  to  bid  him  open 
the  little  volume  anywhere  and  begin  to  read.  But  there 
is  no  harm  in  mentioning  a  few  of  the  poems  which  have 
given  Wordsworth  a  permanent  hold  on  English  and 
American  minds.  (The  "Lyrical  Ballads"  were  reprinted 
in  America  in  1802.) 

Among  the  narrative  poems:  "Ruth,"  "Michael,"  and 
"The  Leach  Gatherer." 

Among  the  Lyrics:  "The  Solitary  Reap)er,"  "Early 
Spring,"  "The  Lucy  Series,"  "Expostulation  and  Re- 
ply," "The  Cuckoo,"  "Nightingale,"  "Daffodils,"  and 
"Small  Celandine." 

Among  the  Sonnets:  Those  on  "London,"  "Westmin- 
ster Bridge,"  "The  Beach  near  Calais,"  "The  Extinction 
of  the  Venetian  Republic,"  "Toussaint  I'Ouverture," 
"The  Subjugation  of  Switzerland,"  "To  R.  B.  Haydon," 
"To  Raisley  Calvert,"  "  Where  lies  the  Land,"  "Scorn 
not  the  Sonnet." 

Among  the  reflective  poems:  "  Tintern  Abbey,"  "  Peele 
Castle,"  "The  Fountain,"  'The  Happy  Warrior," 
"Laodameia,"  the  "Ode  to  Duty,"  and  that  on  the  "Inti- 
mations of  Immortality." 

To  those  add  the  first  Book  of  "The  Prelude,"  espe- 
cially the  last  half,  and  fragments  from  the  Preface  to  the 
second  volume  of  the  "Lyrical  Ballads."  If  a  strong 
Wordsworth  app(>titc  is  developed,  venture  —  though 
late  —  oa  "Pelcr  Bell." 


VII 

Alfred  Tennyson 


VII 

ALFRED  TENNYSON 

Two  gigantic  figures  dominate  the  English 
poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Alfred  Tenny- 
son and  Robert  Browning.  Their  lives  stretch 
nearly  across  the  century,  entering  it  at  the 
close  of  its  first  decade  and  leaving  it  near  the 
beginning  of  its  last.  Their  poetic  span,  that  is 
the  time  during  which  they  wrote,  is  longer,  I 
believe,  than  that  of  any  other  English  poet. 
Strange,  that  the  two  of  longest  flight  should 
happen  to  come  together!  But  such  is  the 
fortunate  fact,  Tennyson's  first  volume  was 
published  in  1827  when  he  was  eighteen  years 
old;  his  last,  in  1892,  the  last  year  of  his  life, 
gave  him  a  poetic  span  of  sixty -five  years. 
Browning  fell  but  a  year  or  two  behind.  That 
is  an  extraordinary  length  of  poetic  activity. 
The  homely,  slighted  shepherd's  trade  is  ordi- 
narily brief.  In  few  poets  does  it  extend  beyond 
twenty-five  years.  In  some  of  the  greatest  it 
has  not  passed  half  a  dozen.  Milton  might 
seem  almost  to  equal  Tennyson.  But  though 
his  was  a  fairly  long  life  his  poetic  work  was 


226    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

broken  in  the  middle.  For  thirty  years  he 
turned  aside  to  political  pamphleteering  and 
produced  in  poetry  only  a  few  sonnets.  Words- 
worth had  a  life  of  eighty  years;  but  he  began 
to  write  late  and  ended  early.  Tennyson  and 
Browning,  both  poets  of  the  highest  rank,  kept 
their  creative  power  through  a  period  of  unex- 
ampled duration.  Together  they  sum  up  the 
intellectual  tendencies  of  their  century  as  no 
other  century  has  been  poetically  summarized. 
Each,  too,  followed  poetry  as  a  profession 
and  attended  to  nothing  else.  Pope  was  the 
first  of  our  poets  to  be  so  whole-hearted.  Up 
to  his  time  poetry  was  commonly  regarded  as 
an  accomplishment  for  the  man  of  culture,  a 
graceful  addition  to  the  serious  tasks  of  life. 
Pope  speaks  with  scorn  of  "the  mob  of  gentle- 
men who  write  with  ease."  To  him,  to  Words- 
worth, Tennyson,  and  Browning,  poetry  was 
a  grave  matter.  They  dedicated  themselves 
to  it  from  childhood  and  took  on  no  other 
employment.  But  by  no  one  of  them  was  this 
exclusive  devotion  carried  so  far  as  by  Tenny- 
son. During  most  of  his  life  he  withdrew  from 
general  society,  wrote  no  prose  whatever, 
hardly  letters,  giving  himself  altogether  to  his 
art.    We  demand  this  devotion  of  the  painter 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  227 

or  musician  and  generally  recognize  that  in 
their  fields  excellence  is  attainable  only  by 
such  strenuous  discipline.  Curiously  enough  in 
poetry,  the  most  arduous  of  the  arts,  we  are 
less  exacting. 

Having  only  this  single  interest,  the  life  of 
Tennyson  is  peculiarly  orderly  and  develops 
in  a  natural  series  of  sequent  literary  stages. 
Its  first  period  extends  from  his  birth  in  1809 
to  the  publication  of  "Poems  Chiefly  Lyrical" 
in  1830;  its  second  to  "In  Memoriam"  and  the 
Laureateship  in  1850;  the  third  to  the  comple- 
tion of  the  "Idylls  of  the  King"  about  1870; 
the  fourth  ends  with  his  death  in  1892,  in  which 
year  he  printed  a  volume  of  miscellaneous 
verse  and  another  of  plays.  While  each  of  these 
periods  contains  a  wide  variety  of  verse,  the  first 
is  predominantly  juvenile  and  imitative;  the 
second,  lyrical;  the  third,  narrative;  the  fourth, 
dramatic.  The  subjects  of  the  first  period  are 
romantic  and  unimportant,  those  of  the  second 
turn  largely  on  problems  of  love  and  fate,  those 
of  the  third  on  social  questions,  those  of  the 
fourth  on  history.  We  might  characterize  the 
four  periods  locally,  according  to  Tennyson's 
place  of  residence;  naming  the  first  Somersby, 
the  second  London,  the  third  Farringford,  the 


228    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

fourth  Aid  worth.  Or  we  might  group  them 
around  his  chief  associates:  first  his  family, 
second  his  university  friends,  third  his  wife, 
fourth  people  of  note.  And  each  of  these  four 
modes  of  division  will  have  an  inherent  con- 
nection with  all  the  others. 

In  studying  the  opening  careers  of  Tennyson 
and  Browning,  1830-1833,  it  is  well  to  notice 
how  favorable  was  the  time  for  a  young  poetic 
adventurer.  From  1834  to  1844  the  field  was 
almost  clear,  the  remarkable  group  who  gave 
poetic  glory  to  the  first  quarter  of  the  century 
having  passed  away  and  those  who  were  to  be 
conspicuous  during  its  second  half  not  having 
yet  arrived.  Coleridge  died  in  1834.  Keats, 
Shelley,  Byron,  Blake,  Crabbe,  Scott,  Lamb, 
and  Rogers  had  all  gone  before.  Hunt,  Moore, 
Southey,  and  Wordsworth  lived  on,  but  had 
almost  ceased  to  write  verse,  while  Arnold, 
Clough,  Patmore,  the  Rossettis,  Morris,  and 
Swinburne  published  nothing  till  after  1844. 
The  poets  of  the  barren  interval  were  respect- 
able writers  like  Taylor,  Talfourd,  Hood,  and 
the  later  Landor,  with  such  popular  favorites 
as  P.  J.  Bailey  and  Robert  Montgomery,  none 
of  them  men  likely  to  withdraw  attention  from 
a  young  poet  of  promise.  Between  the  close  of 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  229 

one  great  poetic  epoch  and  tlie  coming  of  an- 
other a  fortunate  opportunity  was  offered  for 
training  the  ear  of  England  to  new  rhythms. 
This  opportunity  Tennyson  seized,  reaching 
full  success  with  his  volumes  of  1842  and  1850. 
His  equipment  for  the  task  and  his  steps  to- 
ward its  attainment  I  briefly  describe. 

Tennyson  was  born  and  grew  to  manhood 
far  from  cities,  in  the  small  village  of  Somersby, 
Lincolnshire.  Its  low-lying  scenery  he  has 
often  painted,  particularly  in  "In  Memoriam" 
and  the  "Ode  to  Memory"  —  its  fat  fields 
"trenched  from  sky  to  sky,"  its  luxuriant 
trees,  straight  roads  and,  where  the  land 
approaches  the  sea,  its  rolling  sand  hills.  A 
dozen  miles  away,  at  Mablethorpe  on  the  coast, 
the  Tennysons  had  a  summer  cottage,  and  here 
Alfred's  passion  for  the  sea  began.  At  Som- 
ersby and  the  neighboring  parish  of  Wood 
Enderby  his  father  was  the  rector,  a  stern  dis- 
appointed man;  for  his  own  father  instead  of 
leaving  his  large  estates  in  customary  fashion 
to  him,  the  elder  son,  had  alienated  them  to  his 
younger  brother  and  left  him  with  small  means. 
The  injury  always  rankled.  The  sweetness  of 
the  large  household  —  eight  sons  and  four 
daughters  —  was  centered  in  the  mother,  some 


230    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

features  of  whose  character  Tennyson  has 
sketched  in  "Isabel."  Great  physical  hardi- 
hood was  in  the  family;  the  father,  Alfred,  and 
one  or  two  of  the  brothers  being  over  six  feet 
tall,  and  all  but  two  of  the  twelve  children  liv- 
ing till  past  seventy.  Still  more  marked  was 
their  intellectual  power.  The  father  was  a 
graduate  and  LL.D.  of  Cambridge,  a  learned 
man,  who  had  gathered  a  large  library  and 
early  cultivated  in  his  children  a  taste  for  art 
and  literature.  The  girls  were  accomplished 
musicians,  and  most  of  the  boys  wrote  poetry, 
criticizing  each  other's  work  while  still  chil- 
dren. Two  of  them,  Frederic  and  Charles,  pub- 
lished several  volumes  of  verse  and  might  have 
won  distinction  as  poets  had  they  not  been 
overtopped  by  their  brother.  All  became  ac- 
quainted, even  in  childhood,  with  what  is  best 
in  English  poetry.  In  that  secluded  rectory 
there  was  no  lack  of  stimulating  society. 

As  regards  Tennyson's  early  practice  in 
verse,  he  told  his  son  that  when  he  was  eight 
years  old  he  wrote  in  praise  of  flowers  under 
the  influence  of  Thomson;  that  at  eleven  he 
imitated  Pope's  "Iliad,"  and  a  year  later  com- 
posed an  epic  of  six  thousand  lines  in  the  man- 
ner of  Scott.   His  brothers  were  writing  hardly 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  231 

less.  By  the  time  Alfred  was  seventeen  so 
considerable  a  stock  was  accumulated  that 
Frederic,  Charles,  and  he  formed  the  project 
of  a  collected  volume  of  their  verse,  persuaded 
a  bookseller. of  the  neighboring  town  of  Louth 
to  print  it,  and  even  to  pay  £21  for  the  privi- 
lege. It  appeared  in  1827.  No  names  were 
attached  and  though  all  three  writers  were 
alike  involved,  it  was  curiously  entitled  "Poems 
by  Two  Brothers." 

Seldom,  I  think,  has  a  poet  started  at  a 
farther  remove  from  the  goal  he  ultimately 
reaches.  Of  the  Tennyson  whom  we  know  no 
one,  however  keen  a  critic,  will  detect  a  trace 
in  that  little  volume.  Of  course  boys  have  few 
ideas  and  are  naturally  imitative.  It  is  not 
strange  then  that  here  we  meet  Byron.  Moore, 
Scott,  more  frequently  than  the  later  Laureate. 
Byron,  in  particular,  was  at  this  time  the  idol 
of  every  romantic  youth.  When  he  died  in 
1824,  Tennyson  said  the  whole  world  seemed 
to  be  darkened  for  him.  Yet  it  is  strange  that 
when  Tennyson  first  appears  he  should  not 
appear  at  all.  We  should  expect  that  one  of  so 
distinctive  a  note  would  have  sounded  some 
prelude  of  it  at  once,  especially  since  it  is 
clearly  heard  only  two  years  later  in  his  prize 


232    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

poem  "Timbuctoo,"  and  in  every  line  of  the 
volume  of  1830  is  unmistakable.  The  marvel  is 
that  he  discovered  himself  so  quickly  after 
beginning  in  ignorance  so  complete.  These 
early  efforts,  however,  were  valuable  as  giving 
a  knack  of  verse,  soon  to  be  turned  into  a 
means  of  self-expression. 

In  1829,  the  year  in  which  "  Timbuctoo  " 
\ras  published,  Frederic  Tennyson  matriculated 
at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  The  following 
year  he  was  joined  by  Charles,  a  year  younger 
than  himself,  and  by  Alfred,  a  year  younger 
than  Charles.  Alfred  had  been  prepared  for 
the  university  by  four  unsatisfactory  years  at 
Louth  School  and  by  seven  subsequent  years 
of  tuition  under  his  father  at  home.  He  who 
hitherto  had  had  few  companions  beside  his 
brothers  was  now  brought  into  close  contact 
with  a  group  of  brilliant  young  men  nearly  all 
of  whom  subsequently  attained  literary  fame. 
Spedding,  Milnes,  Merivale,  Trench,  Alford, 
and  Hallam  became  Tennyson's  intimate 
friends.  FitzGerald  was  also  at  Cambridge  at 
this  time,  but  Tennyson  did  not  make  his 
acquaintance  till  several  years  later.  Most  of 
these  men  were  members  of  the  Society  of 
Apostles,  organized  a  few  years  earlier  by  F.  D. 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  233 

Maurice,  and  made  up  of  the  forward-looking 
minds  of  the  university  —  reformers  in  poli- 
tics, questioners  in  religion,  impassioned  for 
every  species  of  literary  and  moral  advance, 
and  drawing  much  of  their  inspiration  from 
foreign  ideals,  or  from  such  importers  of  them 
as  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Keats. 
Most  of  these  young  men  wrote  poetry  and 
were  eager  in  discussing  its  nature  and  office. 

Arthur  Henry  Hallam  was  the  golden  youth 
of  the  company,  looked  up  to  by  the  rest  in 
somewhat  the  same  way  as  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
had  been  nearly  three  centuries  before.  The 
admiration  lavished  on  him  by  all  who  crossed 
his  path  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand.  He 
reached  no  high  academic  rank,  caring  little 
for  the  mathematics  and  physics  on  which 
Cambridge  lays  its  chief  stress.  His  tastes  were 
poetic  and  philosophic.  He  had  a  larger  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Italian,  French,  and  early 
English  literatures  than  was  common  at  that 
time.  His  death  at  twenty-two,  his  slender 
health  and  easy  circumstances  prevented  him 
from  trying  his  powers  in  any  single  book.  The 
considerable  body  of  miscellaneous  prose  and 
verse,  published  by  his  father,  the  historian, 
after  his  death,  is  judicious  and  accomplished. 


234    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

altogether  creditable  for  a  youth  of  his  years, 
but  rarely  distinguished.  Yet  acute  judges, 
like  Gladstone,  Tennyson,  and  the  critical  cir- 
cle with  which  he  associated  at  the  university 
counted  him  superior  to  all  the  men  they  knew. 
The  charm  was  probably  in  the  living  personal- 
ity, for  he  was  singularly  vital  —  beautiful  in 
face,  delightful  in  voice,  exalted  in  character, 
impressively  intellectual,  swiftly  sympathetic, 
possessed  of  all  the  graces  that  attend  wealth 
and  high  station,  together  with  entire  simplic- 
ity and  sweetness.  These  qualities  made  him 
profoundly  loved,  perhaps  a  little  over  esti- 
mated. Tennyson  has  minutely  described  his 
friend  in  "In  Memoriam"  (85  and  107-109), 
has  described  too  the  happy  holidays  spent 
together  at  Somersby,  where  Arthur  became 
engaged  to  Tennyson's  sister  Emily  ("In 
Memoriam,"  86).  In  1829  Tennyson  and  he 
contested  for  the  Cambridge  Prize  Poem,  won 
by  Tennyson,  and  in  the  summer  of  1830  went 
together  on  an  audacious  errand  to  Spain, 
carrying  supplies  to  revolutionists  there. 

In  1830,  too,  Tennyson  published  his  "Poems 
Chiefly  Lyrical."  A  few  shrewd  reviewers  were 
able  to  discern  promise  in  the  boyish  volume, 
but  it  attracted  little  attention.  Tennyson  had 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  235 

not  yet  acquired  mastery  of  the  type  of  poetry 
he  would  introduce.  Early  the  following  year, 
without  taking  a  degree,  he  left  Cambridge  on 
account  of  the  illness  of  his  father,  who  died  a 
few  months  later.  At  Somersby  he  remained, 
assuming  the  difficult  financial  charge  of  the 
family.  And  now  for  the  next  eleven  years 
there  fell  upon  him  such  a  variety  of  afflictions 
and  discouragements  as  would  have  crushed 
the  spirit  of  any  young  poet  less  resolute  than 
himself. 

In  the  last  months  of  1832  a  second  volume 
of  miscellaneous  poems  was  published,  whose 
greater  maturity  gave  both  Hallam  and  him- 
self high  hopes.  Many  excellent  critics  —  Cole- 
ridge, J.  S.  Mill,  Miss  Barrett,  FitzGerald, 
E.  A.  Poe  —  saw  in  it  the  work  of  a  poet  of 
importance;  but  the  searching,  almost  fero- 
cious, article  in  the  "Quarterly,"  at  that  time 
a  review  of  great  influence,  obscured  for  Ten- 
nyson all  other  approval.  He  was  always 
morbidly  sensitive  to  adverse  criticism  and 
unhappily  the  writer  in  the  "Quarterly,"  prob- 
ably Lockhart,  had  fastened  on  genuine  blem- 
ishes. While  Tennyson  was  smarting  under 
the  attack,  Arthur  Hallam  died  suddenly  at 
Vienna,  on  September  15,  1832.    The  double 


236    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

blow  almost  unmanned  him,  but  he  soon  turned 
it  to  power.  "Ulysses,"  he  told  his  son,  "was 
written  soon  after  Arthur  Hallam's  death  and 
gave  my  feeling  about  the  need  of  going  for- 
ward and  braving  the  struggle  of  life."  Now 
too  the  two  deaths  of  those  who  were  dearest 
to  him,  occurring  as  they  did  within  two  years 
of  one  another,  brought  before  him  that  prob- 
lem of  immortality  which  was  to  engage  his 
attention  throughout  his  remaining  life.  Its 
twofold  aspect  he  treated  in  a  sort  of  staccato 
measure  in  "The  Two  Voices,"  and  then  began 
laying  stone  on  stone  in  the  monument  for  his 
friend  which  was  not  completed  for  seventeen 
years.  The  attack  of  the  "Quarterly"  he  even 
turned  to  good  account,  making  it  his  school- 
master, searching  out  the  truth  of  its  cruel 
criticisms,  elaborately  revising  the  poems  which 
had  provoked  it,  and  publishing  nothing  for 
ten  years. 

In  1837  the  Tennysons  were  turned  out  of 
the  Somersby  Rectory.  The  parting  seemed 
to  Alfred  like  a  new  separation  from  Arthur 
("In  Memoriam,"  98-101).  For  many  years 
thereafter  Tennyson  had  no  settled  home,  the 
family  occupying  several  houses  under  his 
charge  in  the  vicinity  of  London,  and  he  finding 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  237 

his  chief  companionship  with  the  friends  of  his 
Cambridge  days.  For  general  society  he  had 
always  an  aversion. 

The  ye^r  before  the  family  left  Somersby 
Charles  Tennyson  married  Louisa  Sellwood 
there.  Her  sister  Emily  was  the  bridesmaid, 
Alfred  Tennyson  the  groomsman.  Half  a  dozen 
years  earlier  they  had  met.  The  acquaintance 
now  soon  ripened  into  an  engagement,  which 
brought  a  brief  brightness  into  these  dark 
years.  But  in  1840,  since  marriage  seemed  im- 
possible through  lack  of  means,  the  engage- 
ment was  broken  and  all  correspondence  be- 
tween the  pair  forbidden  (cf .  "  Love  and  Duty  '* 
and  "Aylmer's  Field").  What  an  extreme  case 
is  this  of  persistence  in  an  artistic  aim!  For 
nine  years  after  leaving  the  university  Tenny- 
son had  undertaken  no  money-making  employ- 
ment. He  would  not  enter  upon  any  such  now 
nor  put  aside  his  poetic  purpose  even  to  secure 
a  desired  marriage.  His  very  disappointment 
over  his  early  books  had  fixed  an  iron  resolve 
to  make  his  next  unquestionable.  This  was  to 
be  a  collection  of  his  entire  work,  but  with 
additions,  omissions,  and  such  extensive  re- 
vision as  almost  to  amount  to  rewriting.  The 
poems  were  to  be  brought  as  near  to  pure  gold 


238    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

as  ten  years  of  critical  elaboration  could  effect. 
And  very  near  to  pure  gold  they  seemed  when 
at  last,  in  1842,  the  two  volumes  were  pub- 
lished. From  that  time  nobody  doubted  that 
a  great  poet  of  a  new  type  had  arisen. 

But  while  these  two  ripened  volumes  made 
his  fame  secure,  they  were  attended  by  a 
financial  catastrophe.  In  1841  a  certain  Dr. 
Allen,  a  man  of  enthusiastic  tongue  and  slender 
judgment,  became  acquainted  with  Tennyson 
and  persuaded  him  to  put  all  his  own  small 
property  and  much  of  his  mother's  into  a  pro- 
cess of  mechanical  wood-carving,  invented  by 
himself.  Three  years  later  the  scheme  was 
found  to  be  utterly  worthless  and  Tennyson 
lost  all.  "I  have  drunk,"  he  writes,  '*one  of 
those  most  bitter  draughts  out  of  the  cup  of  life 
which  go  near  to  make  men  hate  the  world  they 
move  in"  (cf.  first  section  of  "Maud"  and 
"Sea  Dreams").  In  1845  Milnes  applied  to 
Sir  Robert  Peel  for  aid,  and  relates  that  when 
Peel  had  read  "Ulysses"  he  granted  a  pension 
of  £200. 

Henceforth  the  life  of  Tennyson  is  a  series 
of  successes.  "The  Princess"  was  published  in 
1847  and  in  what  may  be  called  Tennyson's 
climactic  year,  1850,  fell  together  the  three 


,  ALFRED  TENNYSON  239 

most  important  events  of  his  life:  "In  Memo- 
riam"  was  published,  the  Laureateship  was 
conferred  on  him,  and  he  was  married  to  Emily 
Sell  wood.  "The  peace  of  God  came  into  my 
life  when  I  wedded  her,"  he  afterwards  said. 
She  was  his  intellectual  companion,  his  surest 
critic,  his  cheerful  protector  against  the  inner 
despondency  and  social  annoyance  from  which 
he  often  suffered.  They  were  married  in  the 
month  in  which  "In  Memoriam"  appeared  and 
visited  Arthur  Hallam's  grave  at  Clevedon  on 
their  wedding  journey. 

I  have  examined  these  two  periods  of  Tenny- 
son's life  with  some  minuteness  because  they 
were  formative;  in  them  all  that  distinguishes 
Tennyson  comes  to  complete  expression.  The 
two  periods  which  follow  merely  increase  the 
bulk  of  his  poetry  according  to  patterns  already 
set  or,  in  departing  from  these,  show  him  work- 
ing with  diminished  power.  The  third  and 
fourth  periods,  therefore,  require  from  us  no 
detailed  examination.  The  third  (1850-1870), 
probably  the  happiest  of  Tennyson's  life,  was 
spent  in  seclusion  with  his  wife  at  Farringford, 
on  the  coast  of  the  Isle  of  Wight.  Here  he 
turned  more  and  more  to  social  studies  in  nar- 
rative form,  studies  already  begun  in  "The 


240    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Princess,"  continued  in  a  survey  of  leadership 
as  seen  in  "The  Duke  of  Wellington,"  of  the 
family  tie  in  "Enoch  Arden"  and  "Aylmer's 
Field,"  and  of  the  ideal  State  in  the  "Idylls  of 
the  King."  An  epic  on  the  legend  of  Arthur 
had  been  planned  with  Arthur  Hallam  and  a 
section  of  it,  the  "Morte  d'Arthur,"  had  been 
"written  as  early  as  1835.  However  beautiful 
the  completed  "  Idylls  "  are  in  parts,  careful 
readers  will  feel  them  over-ornamented  and 
over-moralized,  dangers  to  which  Tennyson 
was  always  liable.  But  they  increased  his  pop- 
ularity, as  the  work  of  his  last  period  did  not. 
That  consisted  largely  of  plays.  It  was  nat- 
ural, praiseworthy  even,  that  one  so  devoted 
to  institutions  and  so  profoundly  an  English- 
man should  follow  his  survey  of  society  with 
dramas  which,  like  the  historical  plays  of 
Shakspere,  exhibit  crises  in  the  development 
of  his  country.  Such  are  "Harold,"  "Becket," 
"Queen  Mary."  Most  poets  at  one  time  or 
another  have  a  longing  to  be  dramatists  as  well, 
and  easily  overlook  differences  in  the  require- 
ments of  the  two  arts.  Tennyson  showed 
splendid  persistence  in  a  mistaken  course.  A 
third  of  all  his  poetry  consists  of  plays  and  to 
it  he  gave  a  quarter  of  his  life.    His  early 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  241 

experience  had  taught  him  to  press  through 
partial  failure  to  ultimate  success.  But  dra- 
matic success  he  never  attained.  Any  one  of 
his  plays,  yes  all  of  them,  we  would  gladly 
exchange  for  another  "Revenge,"  "Northern 
Farmer,"  "Lucretius,"  or  "Lines  to  Virgil." 
A  pessimistic  attitude,  too,  toward  modern 
conditions  of  society  mars  Tennyson's  later 
work  and  is  perhaps  not  unconnected  with 
changes  in  his  mode  of  life.  As  his  fame  in- 
creased, he  became  discontented  with  Far- 
ringford.  It  was  too  much  exposed  to  the 
sight-seeing  multitude  and  too  remote  from  the 
celebrities  who  now  sought  him.  The  distrac- 
tions of  renown  were  as  injurious  to  him  as  to 
Wordsworth.  In  1880  he  built  himself  the 
castle  of  Aldworth  in  Sussex  and  out  of  it  came 
as  little  important  poetry  as  had  come  from 
Rydal  Mount.  In  1883,  with  some  misgivings, 
he  accepted  a  peerage. 

While  Tennyson  treats  a  wider  range  of  sub- 
jects than  any  previous  poet,  to  certain  ones  he 
gives  a  special  prominence  and  has  set  on  them 
his  own  distinctive  mark.  A  few  of  his  domi- 
nant ideas  I  name. 

He  is  preeminently  a  poet  of  England.  No 
one  else  has  so  movingly  sung  its  ideals,  its 


242  FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

history,  its  scenery,  its  political  grandeur,  its 
hallowed  domestic  life.  He  never  mentions 
Germany,  France  he  distrusts.  He  is  less  inter- 
ested in  Italy  and  America  than  in  India.  For 
good  or  for  ill  his  sympathies  are  pretty  strictly 
confined  to  his  own  country,  where  he  passes 
his  years  contentedly  with  only  brief  excur- 
sions into  a  world  beyond.  Into  England's 
soil  his  roots  run  deep  through  many  genera- 
tions. He  is  a  product  of  its  land  system,  its 
church,  its  universities.  Institutions,  the  per- 
manent and  slowly  elaborated  organizations 
of  society,  nowhere  more  influential  than  in 
England,  are  what  he  honors.  While  for  most 
of  his  Hfe  a  liberal  in  politics,  he  dreads  extremes 
and  looks  to  the  superior  classes  to  guard  the 
welfare  of  the  inferior.  It  is  the  orderliness  of 
his  country  which  moves  his  admiration.  Eng- 
land is 

"A  land  of  settled  government, 
A  land  of  just  and  old  renown, 
Where  freedom  broadens  slowly  down 
From  precedent  to  precedent." 

Tennyson,  too,  is  the  poet  of  married  life. 
He  does  not  conceive  of  love  as  a  fine  rapture  of 
youthful  hours,  but  as  the  som-ce  of  the  deep- 
est and  most  constant  happiness  in  life.  It  is. 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  243 

if  we  may  so  say,  the  institutional  aspects 
of  love  which  he  emphasizes  —  marriage,  the 
home,  the  care  of  children.  Notwithstanding 
occasional  l?ursts  of  lyric  feeling,  as  in  "Move 
Eastward,  Happy  Earth,"  he  does  not  as  a 
rule  sing  of  the  intense  moments  of  passion, 
like  Burns,  but  with  Wordsworth  approves 
"the  depth  and  not  the  tumult  of  the  soul." 

In  his  treatment  of  the  great  problems  which 
agitated  the  nineteenth  century  Tennyson  was 
almost  a  prophet.  Before  the  idea  of  evolution 
had  appeared  as  a  scientific  doctrine  it  was  put 
forth  by  Tennyson  hypothetically  in  "In 
Memoriam."  The  intellectual  advancement  of 
woman  too  (the  evolution  of  half  the  human 
race)  was  announced  by  him  before  the  ques- 
tion had  even  been  seriously  agitated.  The 
fantastic  dream  of  "The  Princess"  has  become 
for  us  an  every-day  reality. 

A  problem  of  the  age  more  central  still  was 
the  question  of  the  adjustment  of  the  physical 
world  to  the  personality  of  man.  In  the  nat- 
ural world  we  know  there  is  "no  variableness 
nor  shadow  of  turning."  Do  similar  mechanic 
forces  direct  our  thinking  and  acting,  or  is  there 
a  spiritual  princ'i])le  within  us  not  subject  to 
the  rigidity  of  law?    How  could  a  free  being 


244    FOR^L\TrV'E  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

exist  in  a  locked-up  world?  How  is  it  that  we 
control  the  fixed  sequences  of  nature?  Tenny- 
son met  these  grave  questions  equipped  with  a 
wider  knowledge  of  science  than  any  previous 
or  contemporary  English  poet,  and  on  the 
whole  held  to  the  spiritual  side  in  the  great 
argument,  convinced  that  man  does  overrule 
the  sequences  of  nature,  that  from  him  new 
sequences  even  begin.  In  taking  this  unfash- 
ionable position  he  again  anticipated  a  change 
in  public  opinion.  Up  to  1875  the  mechanistic 
conception  was  in  the  ascendant.  Since  that 
date  a  considerable  reaction  has  set  in.  Scien- 
tific men  have  more  and  more  perceived  that 
some  provision  must  exist  in  the  imiverse  for 
coordinating  forces  unlike  mechanic  agencies. 
Both  tendencies  of  thought  Tennyson  recog- 
nized as  important,  felt  both  stirring  strongly 
within  himself,  and  yet  to  the  last  remained, 
like  Bro^Tiing,  a  profoundly  religious  man. 

One  religious  doctrine  I  have  already  men- 
tioned as  agitating  Tennyson  from  the  very 
beginning  of  his  career,  the  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality. Throughout  life  he  regarded  it  as  more 
fundamental  than  any  other  and  came  to  feel 
a  sense  of  passionate  loyalty  in  maintaining  it. 
Doubt  about  it  he  figured  as  a  kind  of  deser- 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  245 

tion.  It  led  him  to  a  sober  interest  in  psychic 
phenomena  of  all  sorts,  especially  since  from 
childhood  he  had  been  subject  to  a  peculiar 
trance  state,  or  auto-hypnotism.  To  this  he 
refers  in  every  period  of  his  writing.  A  first 
sketch  of  it  is  given  in  "The  Mystic,"  printed 
among  the  "Poems  Chiefly  Lyrical":  — 

"He  often  lying  broad  awake,  and  yet 
Remaining  from  the  body  and  apart 
In  intellect  and  power  and  will,  hath  heard 
Time  flowing  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
And  all  things  creeping  to  a  day  of  doom." 

In  his  middle  period  it  formed  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  "The  Princess,"  appearing  there  half 
a  dozen  times  and  receiving  the  name  of  "the 
weird  seizure."  Near  the  close  of  his  life  it  is 
presented  with  peculiar  solemnity  in  the  final 
sections  of  "The  Ancient  Sage."  It  would 
seem  that  in  Tennyson's  mind  the  state  of  con- 
sciousness thus  described  formed  a  kind  of 
connecting  link  between  this  life  and  the  next. 
Although  man  is  the  chief  theme  of  Tenny- 
son's poetry,  no  poet  has  scrutinized  nature 
more  closely.  Wordsworth  surveys  a  scene  as 
a  whole  and  with  reference  to  its  effect  on  our 
feelings.  lie  does  not,  like  the  naturalist,  in- 
spect its  details.   Tennyson,  on  the  contrary, 


246    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

observes  physical  facts  with  a  minuteness  prob- 
ably unmatched  by  any  English  poet  except 
Shakspere.  Generally,  however,  the  natural 
scene  so  studied  is  used  as  merely  a  background 
for  human  activity.  "The  Dying  Swan,"  "The 
Black  Bird,"  "The  Lines  on  Early  Spring"  are 
poems  of  pure  nature.  What  others  are  there? 
Tennyson  accepts  the  romantic  principle  of  a 
correspondence  between  nature  and  mind  and 
hence  his  outward  scene  is  usually  colored  by 
the  inner  mood.  The  pathetic  fallacy  he  carries 
to  great  extremes. 

Such,  then,  are  the  splendid  themes  with 
which  Tennyson's  poetry  is  charged.  I  put 
them  all  aside  as  having  little  to  do  with  the 
design  of  this  book.  They  are  by  no  means 
peculiar  to  Tennyson  nor  is  he  likely  to  gain 
permanent  life  through  their  presentation.  The 
dominant  ideas  of  any  poet  are  of  transient 
interest.  What  is  novel  to  one  generation  be- 
comes commonplace  to  the  next.  If  a  poet  is 
to  secure  permanence,  it  must  be  by  a  contri- 
bution of  larger  value  than  these  Tennysonian 
ideas.  I,  at  least,  have  undertaken  to  present 
only  those  features  of  my  half-dozen  poets  in 
which  they  become  typical,  that  is,  mark  an 
epoch  and  enlarge  the  bounds  of  English  poetry 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  247 

by  introducing  something  which  it  had  not 
known  before.  What  contributions  then  has 
Tennyson  made  of  this  distinctive  kind? 

Arthur  Hallam  shall  answer.  When  the 
crude  and  mannered  little  volume  of  "Poems 
Chiefly  Lyrical"  appeared  in  1830,  Hallam 
was  one  of  the  few  to  discern  in  it  signs  of 
future  power.  In  a  review  contributed  to  the 
"Englishman's  Magazine"  he  calls  attention 
to  five  distinct  characteristics  of  Tennyson's 
verse.  These  I  briefly  summarize  as  (1)  its 
elevation  of  tone,  (2)  its  luxuriance  of  imagina- 
tion, (3)  its  variety  of  measures  and  subtle 
adaptation  of  sound  to  sense,  (4)  its  concen- 
tration on  single  moods,  (5)  the  magic  of  its 
resulting  pictures.  Here  in  a  few  sentences 
Hallam  indicates  with  astonishing  accuracy 
the  advance  which  Tennyson  was  to  bring 
about  in  English  poetry.  Especially  noticeable 
are  the  third  and  fourth  points,  Tennyson's 
reconstitution  of  the  technique  of  our  verse 
and  his  handling  of  character.  To  a  considera- 
tion of  these  I  devote  the  remainder  of  this 
chapter. 

We  all  know  two  contrasted  types  of  poets: 
the  one  which  under  the  impulse  of  feeling 
pours   that   feeling   forth   in   unpremeditated 


248    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

song,  and  the  other  which  studies  the  emo- 
tional material  and  shapes  it  into  an  object  of 
enduring  beauty.  Tennyson  is  of  the  latter 
sort.  He  is  ever  a  conscious  artist,  belonging  to 
the  family  of  Virgil,  Petrarch,  Milton,  Keats, 
rather  than  to  that  of  Homer,  Ariosto,  Burns, 
Shelley.  He  is  an  elaborate  student  of  poetry 
and  no  improvisatore,  though  he  misleadingly 
declares 

**  I  do  but  sing  because  I  must. 
And  pipe  but  as  the  linnet  sings." 

From  him  we  do  not  get  the  swift  and  happy 
spontaneities  which  we  enjoy  in  Burns.  In  his 
first  volumes  there  was  perhaps  something  of 
the  "  fine  careless  rapture."  But  we  have  seen 
how,  because  this  met  with  reproof,  Tennyson 
entered  on  ten  years  of  self -scrutiny  which  gave 
him  the  fixed  critical  habits  by  which  his 
meaningful  poetry  was  henceforth  fashioned. 
"I  was  nearer  thirty  than  twenty  before  I  was 
anything  of  an  artist,"  he  told  his  son.  His 
later  successes  are  the  results  of  deliberate  pur- 
pose, careful  workmanship,  severe  and  repeated 
revision;  but  all  carried  to  so  high  a  pitch  that 
the  harmonious  outcome  affects  us  as  a  species 
of  magic. 

It  will  be  well  to  examine  this  poetic  artistry 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  249 

with  some  care  because  it  is  that  which  in  the 
long  run  is  hkely  to  give  Tennyson  survival 
value.  How  fully  he  has  reflected  on  his  art 
and  how  seriously  he  takes  it  may  be  seen  in 
his  many  poems  on  the  poet's  office.  I  count 
fifteen  such.  He  has  half  a  dozen  experiments 
in  Greek  metres  and  several  in  Saxon.  Having, 
too,  a  passion  for  perfection  and  knowing  it 
can  seldom  be  reached  by  first  thoughts,  he 
frankly  alters  his  lines  in  the  face  of  the  public, 
rarely  without  improvement.  "The  Palace  of 
Art,"  for  example,  first  appeared  in  1833.  In 
1842  twenty-seven  of  its  seventy-six  stanzas 
were  struck  out  and  sixteen  new  ones  added. 
In  1850  and  1851  there  were  further  additions 
and  omissions;  while  of  minor  changes  in  word 
or  line  carried  on  through  this  period  I  count 
nearly  fifty.  Similar  emendations  occur  in 
nearly  all  his  work.  Only  Wordsworth  among 
previous  English  poets  ever  revised  in  this 
fashion,  and  Wordsworth's  changes  were  not 
always  for  the  better.  The  study  of  Tennyson's 
varying  text  is  a  lesson  in  poetic  artistry. 

Hallam  rightly  praises  the  variety  and  fit« 
ness  of  Tennyson's  measures.  Perhaps  the  most 
notable  instance  is  the  measure  of  "In  Memo- 
riam,"  a  marvel  of  adaptation.  How  lingcringly 


250    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

brooding  is  its  mournful  music,  yet  how  readily 
stanza  links  with  stanza!  No  abrupt  break 
occurs,  no  forceful  culmination;  but  the  close 
rhymes  of  the  middle  lines,  in  connection  with 
the  distant  ones  of  the  first  and  last,  both 
emphasize  and  distribute  the  grief  with  a  pecu- 
liar poignancy.  The  stanza  is  generally  thought 
to  be  Tennyson's  own  and  to  have  been  formed 
for  this  specific  purpose.  Yet  he  experimented 
with  it  in  three  poems,  first  published  in  1842 
and  written  about  1833,  at  the  time  when  he 
was  considering  "In  Memoriam" — "The 
Blackbird,"  "Of  Old  sat  Freedom,"  and  "Love 
thou  thy  land "  —  the  first  strangely  out  of 
accord  with  the  massive  feeling  later  judged 
appropriate.  In  "The  Princess,"  accompany- 
ing the  stanza  with  a  refrain,  he  used  it  for  the 
passionate  song  "Ask  me  no  more."  Though 
Tennyson,  too,  supposed  himself  to  have  in- 
vented the  stanza,  four  or  five  cases  of  it  have 
been  pointed  out  in  our  earlier  poetry,  the  most 
remarkable  being  one  by  Lord  Edward  Her- 
bert, the  brother  of  George  Herbert.  This, 
curiously  enough,  deals  with  the  same  prob- 
lem and  emotion  as  "In  Memoriam,"  and  is 
entitled  "An  Ode  on  a  Question  Moved  Whe- 
ther Love  Shall  Continue  Forever." 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  251 

But  the  "  In  Memoriam  "  stanza  is  only 
one  among  many  metric  felicities  of  Tennyson. 
How  superbly  fitting  to  the  large  and  vague 
aspirations  bi  "Locksley  Hall"  is  the  fifteen- 
syllabled  trochaic  sweep  of  its  couplet!  That 
excessive  sweetness  which  has  given  popular 
currency  to  "The  May  Queen"  is  as  truly  in 
the  management  of  its  fourteen-syllabled  line 
as  in  its  sickly  sentiment.  On  the  other  hand, 
think  of  the  sturdiness  of  "The  Oak,"  the 
sternly  insistent  "Charge  of  the  Light  Bri- 
gade," the  swift  simplicity  of  "Sir  Galahad," 
the  meditative  refinement  of  the  "Lines  to 
Virgil,"  the  massive  iterations  of  "Merlin  and 
the  Gleam."  WTien  Hallam  speaks  of  "the 
exquisite  modulation  of  Tennyson's  words  and 
cadences  to  the  swell  and  fall  of  the  feelings 
expressed,"  we  recall  the  diversified  sections 
of  "Maud,"  the  changing  cadences  of  "The 
Lotos-Eaters"  and  "The  Revenge." 

Perhaps  the  subtlety  of  Tennyson's  "finger- 
ing" of  his  line  may  best  be  seen  by  a  compari- 
son of  seemingly  similar  poems.  On  reading 
"The  Daisy"  and  the  "Lines  to  F.  D.  Mau- 
rice," any  one  will  be  likely  to  call  the  novel 
and  beautiful  measures  the  same,  though  the 
two  poems  produce  a  distinct  difference  in  the 


252    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

feeling  experienced.  On  examination  the  latter 
will  be  found  to  have  two  dactyls  in  the  last 
line  of  each  stanza;  "The  Daisy"  but  one. 
Comparison  on  a  broader  scale  may  be  had  in 
the  measures  of  "The  Palace  of  Art,"  "The 
Dream  of  Fair  Women,"  the  "Lines  to  Mary 
Boyle,"  and  "The  Poet,"  where  small  diver- 
gencies from  a  common  form  give  widely  un- 
like effects. 

Where  one  constant  measure  is  employed,  as 
strikingly  in  blank  verse,  great  variety  is  still 
secured.  Sound  and  sense  are  suitably  adjusted 
by  making  the  movement  slow  or  swift  through 
clogged  or  smooth  syllables,  by  allowing  lines 
to  run  over  or  stopping  them  at  the  end,  and  by 
variations  in  the  central  pause.  No  device  is 
too  small  to  escape  Tennyson's  notice,  yet  none 
obtrudes.  Each  is  welded  into  support  of  all 
the  rest.  By  studying  small  adjustments 
Tennyson  developed  a  blank  verse  more  flexi- 
ble and  sensitive  than  any  poet  except  Milton 
had  known  before.  A  single  passage  from 
"CEnone"  will  show  what  delicious  music  a 
master  can  draw  from  a  common  instrument. 

*'  There  lies  a  vale  in  Ida,  lovelier 
Than  all  the  valleys  of  Ionian  hills. 
The  swimming  vapor  slopes  athwart  the  glen. 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  25S 

And  loiters,  slowly  drawn.  On  either  hand 

The  lawns  and  meadow-ledges  midway  down 

Hang  rich  in  flowers,  and  far  below  them  roars 

The  long  brook,  falling  through  the  cloven  ravine 

In  cataract  after  cataract  to  the  sea. 

Behind  the  valley  topmost  Gargarus 

Stands  up  and  takes  the  morning;  but  in  front 

The  gorges,  opening  wide  apart,  reveal 

Troas  and  Ilion's  columned  citadel. 

The  crown  of  Troas." 

Let  one  recall  for  contrast  the  barbaric  chant 
of  allegiance  in  "The  Coming  of  Arthur"  and 
it  will  be  seen  how  Tennyson  can  "sing  to  one 
clear  harp  in  divers  tones." 

I  have  no  need  to  examine  in  detail  his  minor 
poetic  subtleties  —  his  frequent  and  impressive 
repetitions  of  word  or  phrase,  his  keying  a 
passage  to  a  certain  emotional  tone  by  the  use 
of  appropriate  vowel  sounds,  his  strengthening 
important  words  by  alliterated  consonants,  his 
substitution  of  a  trochee  for  an  iambus  in  his 
first  foot,  or  of  three  short  syllables  for  a  short 
and  a  long  wherever  a  livelier  movement  would 
be  welcome.  These  niceties  have  been  suffi- 
ciently remarked  by  the  critics.  Occasion- 
ally, perhaps,  he  is  too  obvious  in  alliteration. 
The  famous  couplet  closing  "The  Princess," 
"small  sweet  Idyl," 

"  The  moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms. 
And  murmuring  of  innumerable  bees," 


254    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

shows  by  its  fame  its  independence  of  the  con- 
text and  consequently  its  weakness.  In  gen- 
eral, however,  Tennyson  is  a  good  teacher  of 
the  technique  of  verse.  Since  all  that  he  does  is 
intentional,  he  can  be  tracked  more  easily  than 
an  intuitive  poet;  and  usually  he  finds  his  way 
through  trial  and  error  to  a  sound  and  beautiful 
result. 

But  while  this  technical  excellence  is,  in  my 
judgment,  what  is  most  likely  to  insure  length 
of  days  to  Tennyson,  he  is  not,  like  Poe,  Swin- 
burne, and  Bridges,  merely  a  technician.  What 
he  says  is  important  as  well  as  his  mode  of  say- 
ing it.  He  marks  an  advance  of  the  naturalistic 
movement  toward  the  depicting  of  individual 
character.  We  have  seen  how  the  Romanticist 
turned  away  from  the  generalities  of  Classi- 
cism, prizing  the  specific  fact,  the  specific  expe- 
rience, the  specific  person.  But  this  new  valu- 
ation of  the  world,  though  it  lay  deep  in  Words- 
worth, was  incompletely  carried  out  by  him. 
The  presentation  of  individual  character  is  the 
hardest  of  poetic  tasks.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
Wordsworth  ever  accomplished  it.  He  is  so 
much  occupied  with  setting  forth  those  primal 
instincts  which  he  believes  to  be  the  support 
of  every  good  man  that  he  pays  little  heed 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  255 

to  the  shifting  moods  of  the  single  human  be- 
ing. In  Tennyson  that  minute  observation  of 
the  individual  at  which  Romanticism  aimed 
first  reaches  expression.  An  actual  person,  as 
he  walks  the  street,  is  a  unique  compound  of 
both  good  and  evil,  built  up  out  of  racial  in- 
stincts, parental  inheritance,  social  environ- 
ment, accidental  circumstance,  with  a  dash  of 
idiosyncracy,  and  the  whole  more  or  less 
vaguely  directed  toward  certain  ideal  ends.  No 
individual  is  quite  consistent  or  altogether 
classifiable.  Yet  in  spite  of  his  wayward  vari- 
ety. Romanticists  rightly  count  him  the  one 
being  of  value  in  the  universe. 

Now  in  Wordsworth  the  moral  interest  is  so 
strong  that  scanty  justice  is  done  to  the  com- 
plexity of  human  nature.  Wordsworth  never 
fully  broke  with  Classicism,  and  most  of  his 
characters  remain  types.  Michael  himself  is 
the  typical  dalesman,  with  few  accidental  or 
distinctive  traits.  Perhaps  those  who  come 
nearest  in  Wordsworth's  poetry  to  living  and 
breathing  persons  are  Peter  Bell,  Ruth,  and 
Margaret  of  "The  Excursion."  But  even  they 
are  shadowy. 

The  most  inii)ortant  work  of  Wordworth's 
two  great  continuers,  Tennyson  and  Browning, 


256    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

was  to  be  done  in  this  field  of  realistic  psychol- 
ogy. Their  methods  were  unlike.  Hallam  notes 
in  Tennyson  "his  power  of  embodying  him- 
self in  ideal  characters,  or  rather  moods  of 
character,  with  such  accuracy  of  adjustment 
that  the  circumstances  of  the  narrative  seem 
to  have  a  natural  correspondence  with  the 
predominant  feeling  and,  as  it  were,  to  be 
evolved  from  it  by  assimilation."  Tennyson's 
method  of  composition  could  hardly  be  more 
justly  stated.  It  is  his  distinction  to  have  intro- 
duced into  English  poetry  a  new  kind  of  por- 
trait-painting, the  portraiture  not  of  any  man 
as  a  whole  but  of  some  single  mood,  into  which 
for  the  moment  all  the  man's  character  and  all 
his  surroundings  are  absorbed.  These  single 
moods,  abstract  and  ideal  though  they  are  and 
not  confined  to  any  one  individual,  are  then 
supplied  with  an  extremely  realistic  setting 
from  which  everything  which  does  not  heighten 
the  effect  is  carefully  excluded.  The  method  is 
so  characteristic  and  important  as  to  require 
detailed  illustration.  It  was  early  employed. 
In  his  first  volume,  of  1830,  it  was  put  forth  in 
a  form  so  extreme  as  to  bewilder  and  repel  the 
public.  Tennyson  soon  made  it  less  obtrusive, 
but  applied  it  steadily  henceforth  in  softened 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  257 

form  in  all  his  best  work.  His  poems  are  a 
museum  of  separate  moods.  Whenever  he  at- 
tempted a  rounded  and  integral  character,  he 
failed  —  as  in  King  Arthur,  Enoch  Arden,  or 
Harold.  Perhaps  those  who  come  nearest  to 
recognizable  human  beings  are  Guinevere,  the 
Northern  Farmer,  and  the  hero  of  "Maud." 
Yet  even  these  represent  rather  typical  mental 
attitudes  than  concrete  persons. 

In  1830  Tennyson  printed  "Mariana."  The 
theme  was  to  be  desolation;  and  how  could 
that  incommunicable  mood  be  better  painted 
than  in  the  figure  of  a  deserted  girl  in  a  lone 
farmstead  of  the  fens?  A  single  poplar  marks 
the  spot.  The  water  in  the  trench  which  drains 
the  surrounding  marsh  is  black  and  slimy.  The 
flower  pots  are  thick  with  mould.  The  thatch 
of  the  house  is  worn.  The  nails  are  rusted,  and 
the  fruit  tree  is  falling  from  the  wall  to  which 
it  had  been  trained.  Everything  is  in  decay. 
The  shrill  wind  is  heard  without,  and  in  the 
early  morning  bears  along  an  occasional  crow 
of  cock,  low  of  cattle,  or  whir  of  bat.  Within 
the  house  the  only  sounds  are  the  ticking 
clock,  the  wainscot  mouse,  the  fly  on  the  win- 
dow-pane; the  only  voice  the  sob  of  the  for- 
saken girl.     Of  her  circumstances  we  know 


258    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

nothing;  of  herself  nothing  except  her  utter 
loneliness,  and  this  reported  not  so  much  by 
her  words  as  by  the  morbid  objects  in  which 
we  see  her  isolation.  No  doubt  the  picture  is 
over-charged,  as  are  the  companion  pictures 
of  Lilian,  Madeline,  and  the  rest.  But  these 
slender  girls  will  not  appear  so  silly  when 
we  regard  them  not  as  full-length  portraits 
of  character,  but  as  early  experiments  in  a 
method  of  evolving  from  a  predominant  mood, 
as  Hallam  says,  the  circumstances  which  cor- 
respond with  it.  About  the  worth  of  these 
moods  Tennyson  is  not  primarily  concerned. 
Enough  for  him  that  they  exhibit  a  genuine 
phase  of  humanity. 

Illustrations  of  the  same  method  on  a  larger 
scale,  and  worked  out  with  more  subtlety  and 
increased  dramatic  power,  are  to  be  found  in 
"The  Lotos-Eaters"  and  "Ulysses."  The 
desire  for  rest  belongs  to  each  of  us.  What 
situation  will  display  it  most  fully?  What 
better  than  the  luxuriant  island  where,  after 
ten  years'  struggle  with  tempestuous  seas, 
the  companions  of  Ulysses  land,  taste  the  sopo- 
rific fruit,  and  doubt  the  worth  of  further  en- 
deavor? By  every  artifice  of  scene  and  sound 
Tennyson   compels   us   into   sympathy   with 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  259 

repose.  But  for  strenuosity  he  does  as  much 
in  Ulysses.  After  losing  Arthur  Hallam,  as  I 
have  already  said,  he  was  tempted  for  a  time 
to  sink  into  inaction;  then  remembering  the 
quenchless  energy  which  Dante  attributes  to 
Ulysses,  he  roused  himself  to  throw  off  the 
listlessness  of  the  home-circle  and  once  more 
to  "seek  a  newer  world"  of  art.  He  may  be 
said  to  have  "touched  the  Happy  Isles"  in 
his  volumes  of  1842.  But  what  full  justice  is 
done  to  the  contrasted  moods !  The  limitations 
of  each  which  would  be  necessary  in  real  life 
are  here  omitted.  The  glory  of  each  we  are 
made  to  feel  in  its  detachment,  the  smooth- 
flowing  insinuating  style  of  the  one  is  set  in 
contrast  with  the  harsh  energy  of  the  other. 
This  is  the  distinctive  method  of  Tennyson. 
We  wrong  him  in  demanding  from  him  rounded 
figures  of  men  and  women.  He  gives  us  ac- 
tuality as  the  Romanticists  had  urged;  but 
it  is  fragmentary  actuality,  subtle  studies  of 
psychologic  moods.  So  had  Milton  studied 
gladness  and  sobriety,  and  in  his  "Allegro" 
and  "Penseroso"  assembled  from  the  living 
world  whatever  feeds  the  special  temper  of 
each. 

It  might  seem  that  such  a  method  would 


260    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

be  applicable  to  brief  poems  only;  but  Tenny- 
son uses  it  in  serial  form  to  fashion  long  ones 
also,  and  several  of  these  are  among  his  best. 
The  rooms  and  pictures  of  "The  Palace  of 
Art"  reflect  the  conflicting  moods  of  its  soli- 
tary inhabitant: 

"Full  of  great  rooms  and  small  the  palace  stood, 
All  various,  each  a  perfect  whole 
From  living  nature,  fit  for  every  mood 
And  change  of  my  still  soul." 

In  "The  Dream  of  Fair  Women":  -- 

"  Shape  chases  shape  as  swift  as,  when  to  land 
Bluster  the  winds  and  tides  the  selfsame  way. 
Crisp  foam-flakes  scud  along  the  level  sand, 
Torn  from  the  fringe  of  spray." 

In  "The  Vision  of  Sin"  the  moody  sections 
are  parted  by  the  five  times  repeated  stanza 
beginning  "Fill  the  cup  and  fill  the  can."  And 
though  in  "Locksley  Hall"  the  moods  are  less 
sharply  sundered,  it  is  their  sequence  which 
gives  its  clamorous  unity  to  the  poem. 

In  meditating  on  immortality  our  emotions 
are  peculiarly  open  to  change.  We  can  hardly 
contemplate  that  many-sided  mystery  with 
an  even  mind.  Tennyson  follows  our  waver- 
ing hopes  with  as  much  system  as  they  will 
bear  in  "The  Two  Voices";  but  in  "In  Me- 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  261 

moriam  "  he  abandons  all  connection,  sets  each 
mood  entirely  free  and  allows  it  space  to  tinge 
with  emotion  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
outer  and  inner  world.  Each  section  thus  be- 
comes the  accurate  embodiment  of  a  single 
mood,  the  whole  forming  a  kind  of  compen- 
dium of  sorrow.  In  "Maud"  the  moods  of  the 
sequent  sections  are  more  varied  and  dra- 
matic and  the  total  monologue  possesses 
greater  unity,  though  the  subject  awakens  less 
sympathy.  In  these  two  poems  Tennyson's 
method  reaches  its  completest  expression.  By 
it  a  new  type  of  poetry  is  formed,  a  type 
peculiarly  intimate.  The  Romantic  move- 
ment advances  into  regions  more  free  from 
conventionality  and  richer  in  personal  ex- 
perience than  any  predecessor  had  explored. 

It  is  natural  that  after  their  death  reaction 
should  set  in  against  such  poetic  sovereigns 
as  Pope  and  Tennyson.  The  latter 's  poetic 
craftsmanship  and  psychological  subtlety  are 
not  the  qualities  most  prized  by  men  of  to- 
day. We  underrate  the  enormous  enrichment 
which  Tennyson  has  given  to  our  poetry  and 
overestimate  the  limitations  which  such  merits 
as  his  involve.  A  brief  statement  of  those 
limitations  will  enable  the  reader  to  under- 


2G2    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

stand  why  English  poetry  could  not  pause 
where  Tennyson  left  it. 

Tennyson  is  entirely  a  poet  of  the  inner  life, 
and  of  that  life  exhibited  in  its  most  personal 
and  shifting  phases.  While  his  observations  of 
nature  are  extraordinarily  exact  and  varied, 
he  rarely  erects  them  into  themes  for  verse, 
but  holds  them  as  decorations  and  back- 
grounds. Such  preoccupation  with  emotion 
easily  goes  over  into  sentimentalism  and  mor- 
bidity, especially  in  an  age  constitutionally 
disposed  to  pride  itself  on  its  sensitiveness  in 
matters  of  feeling.  Mid-Victorianism  took 
itself  pretty  seriously.  Its  "earnest"  writers 
seem  incapable  of  losing  themselves  in  objec- 
tive interests.  They  introspect  a  great  deal 
which  is  not  worth  inspection.  And  Tenny- 
son reflects  pretty  fully  the  strength  and 
weaknesses  of  a  time  which  it  pleases  us  to 
think  we  have  outgrown. 

On  account,  too,  of  the  very  method  which 
gives  him  his  greatest  claim  to  originality, 
Tennyson's  men  and  women  never  seem  quite 
real  beings  but  rather  dream-creatures,  em- 
bodiments of  a  single  feeling,  quite  too  fine 
and  frail  for  the  working  world.  A  hearty 
laugh  would  blow  most  of  them  to  pieces. 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  263 

Many  feel  —  I  do  not  —  that  Tennyson  is 
too  conscious  in  workmanship,  that  his  poems 
are  not  "chiefly  lyrical,"  but  are  thought- 
products  where  nothing  is  left  to  the  impulse 
of  the  moment.  These  cavillers  wish  he  would 
occasionally  show  a  little  recklessness  and 
"snatch  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art." 
This  is  to  ask  that  a  man's  genius  be  changed 
to  yield  what  belongs  to  a  different  tempera- 
ment. Where  a  certain  type  of  genius  is  so 
nearly  supreme  and  precious,  it  is  well  to  wel- 
come its  products  and  look  elsewhere  for  those 
of  another  sort.  Yet  no  doubt  the  tendency 
to  elaboration  exposes  Tennyson  to  one  of 
his  gravest  dangers,  an  over  luxuriance  of 
style.  He  who  sets  out  consciously  to  con- 
struct beauty  may  easily  miss  its  simple  charm 
and  produce  something  which  we  feel  to  be 
too  highly  perfumed.  It  is  a  danger  which 
Tennyson  shares  with  the  whole  Romantic 
School.  From  it  the  Classicist  is  saved  by 
making  clearness  and  unity  outrank  all  other 
literary  excellence. 

I  am  far  from  enumerating  in  this  chapter 
all  the  virtues  of  Tennyson.  On  the  contrary, 
my  aim  has  been  to  fix  attention  on  merely 
two,  his  consummate  craftsmanship  and  his 


964    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

delineation  of  specific  moods.  But  apart  from 
merits  like  these,  and  in  qualities  which  all 
poets  in  some  degree  alike  possess,  Tennyson 
is  preeminent.  Few  writers  employ  a  dic- 
tion so  largely  monosyllabic  or  can  pack  so 
much  matter  into  so  few  words.  Then  too 
beyond  all  other  modern  poets  he  has  the 
power  of  the  magic  phrase.  On  every  page 
gleams  some  sentence,  unmistakably  his, 
which  stirs  in  us  some  such  pleasure  as  does 
a  conceit  of  Donne's,  though  substituting 
elusive  ease  for  manifest  effort.  If  in  an 
anonymous  volume  we  should  fall  upon  this 
description  of  Enid, 

"But  o'er  her  meek  eyes  came  a  happy  mist, 
Like  that  which  kept  the  heart  of  Eden  green 
Before  the  useful  trouble  of  the  rain  " 

should  we  not  delightedly  exclaim  "Tenny- 
son, and  no  other  I" 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

Of  the  earlier  poems,  read  "The  Miller's  Daughter," 
"The  Lady  of  Shalott,"  "The  Palace  of  Art,"  "The 
Lotos-Eaters,"  "Ulysses,"  "Locksley  Hall,"  "Sir  Gala- 
had," "The  Brook,"  "A  Farewell." 

From  the  middle  period:  "The  Daisy,"  "Ode  on  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,"  "The  Northern  Farmer,"  "The 
Flower,"  "Flower  in  the  Crannied  Wall,"  "Wages,"  "The 
Higher  Pantheism." 

From  the  later  period:  "The  Revenge,"  "To  Virgil," 
"Early  Spring,"  "The  Oak,"  "Merlin  and  the  Gleam," 
"Crossing  the  Bar. 

Tennyson's  interpolated  songs  are  so  characteristic 
that  a  few  must  be  mentioned.  From  "The  Princess": 
"As  thro'  the  land";  "Blow,  bugle,  blow";  "Tears,  idle 
tears";  "Ask  me  no  more";  "Come  down,  O  maid." 
From  the  "Idylls":  "Blow,  trumpet,"  from  "The  Com- 
ing of  Arthur";  "Turn,  Fortune,"  from  "The  Marriage 
of  Geraint";  "In  Love,  if  love  be  love,"  from  "Merlin 
and  Vivien";  "Late,  late,  too  late,"  from  "Guinevere." 

Some  of  Tennyson's  best  metrical  work  is  in  "Maud." 
Of  the  "Idylls"  probably  "Elaine"  is  the  usual  favorite. 
"Ill  Memoriam"  is  of  such  even  excellence  that  there  is 
no  need  of  commending  single  sections  to  a  young  reader. 
Read  anywhere. 

Tennyson  studies  the  moods  of  nature  as  searchingly 
as  ho  docs  those  of  mankin<l.  His  practice  might  be  wcl! 
illustrated  by  gathering  what  he  has  said  about  trees, 
clouds,  or  stars.  But  perhaps  the  accuracy  and  variety  of 
his  observation  are  most  impressive  in  his  sea  pieces.  Of 
these  I  print  a  fragmentary  collection: 


266    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Tennyson's  Sea  Pieces 

But  while  the  two  were  sleeping,  a  full  tide 

Rose  with  ground  swell,  which  on  the  foremost  rocks 

Touching,  upjetted  in  spirts  of  wild  sea  smoke 

And  scaled  in  sheets  of  wasteful  foam  and  fell 

In  vast  sea  cataracts  —  ever  and  anon 

Dead  claps  of  thunder  from  within  the  cliffs 

Heard  thro'  the  living  roar. 

I  heard  the  water  lapping  on  the  crag, 
And  the  long  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds. 

And  watch  the  curled  white  of  the  coming  wave 
Glassed  in  the  slippery  sand  before  it  breaks. 

The  points  of  the  foam  in  the  dusk  came  playing  about 
our  feet. 

The  lights  begin  to  twinkle  from  the  rocks. 

The  long  day  wanes,  the  slow  moon  climbs,  the  deep 

Moans  round  with  many  voices. 

The  league-long  roller,  thundering  on  the  reef. 

The  hollow  ocean-ridges,  roaring  into  cataracts. 

The  great  waters  break 
Whitening  for  half  a  league,  and  thin  themselves. 
Far  over  sands  marbled  with  moon  and  cloud. 
From  less  and  less  to  nothing. 

The  myriad  roaring  ocean,  light  and  shadow  illimitable. 

Roared  as  when  the  roaring  breakers  boom  and  blanch 
on  the  precipices. 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  267 

The  waste  voice  of  the  bond-breaking  sea. 

As  on  a  dull  day  in  an  ocean  cave 

The  blind  wave  feeling  round  his  long  sea  hall 

In  silence. 

The  bay  was  oily  calm;  the  harbor  buoy 
With  one  green  sparkle  ever  and  anon 
Dipt  by  itself,  and  we  were  glad  at  heart. 

The  liquid  azure  bloom  of  a  crescent  of  sea. 

The  silent  sapphire-spangled  marriage  ring  of  the  land. 

I  would  the  white  cold  plunging  foam. 
Whirled  by  the  wind,  had  rolled  me  deep  below 
Then  when  I  left  my  home. 

A  still  salt  pool,  locked  in  with  bars  of  sand, 

Left  on  the  shore;  that  hears  all  night 
The  plunging  seas  draw  backward  from  the  land 

Their  moon-led  waters  white. 

A  wild  wave  in  the  wide  North  Sea, 
Green-glimmering  toward  the  summit,  bears  with  all 
Its  stormy  crests  that  smoke  against  the  skies 
Down  on  a  bark,  and  overbears  the  bark 
And  him  that  helms  it. 

Listening  now  to  the  tide  in  its  broad-flung  shipwrecking 

roar. 
Now  to  the  scream  of  a  maddened  beach  dragged  down 

by  the  wave. 

The  sharp  wind  that  ruffles  all  day  long 
A  little  l)itt('r  pool  about  a  stone 
On  a  bare  coast. 


268    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

As  one  that  climbs  a  peak  to  gaze 
O'er  land  and  main,  and  sees  a  great  black  cloud 
Drag  inward  from  the  deeps,  a  wall  of  night, 
Blot  out  the  slope  of  sea  from  verge  to  shore. 
And  suck  the  blinding  splendor  from  the  sand, 
And  quenching  lake  by  lake  and  tarn  by  tarn, 
Expunge  the  world. 

A  ripple  on  the  boundless  deep 
Feels  that  the  deep  is  boundless,  and  itself 
Forever  changing  form,  but  evermore 
One  with  the  boundless  motion  of  the  deep. 

A  full  sea  glazed  with  muflHed  moonlight. 

Lift  up  thy  rocky  face 
And  shelter  when  the  storms  are  black 
In  many  a  streaming  torrent  back 

The  seas  that  shock  thy  base. 

The  wrinkled  sea  beneath  him  crawls. 

Far  ran  the  naked  moon  across 
The  houseless  ocean's  heaving  field. 

They  watched  the  great  sea  fall. 
Wave  after  wave,  each  mightier  than  the  last. 
Till  last  a  ninth  one,  gathering  half  the  deep 
And  full  of  voices,  slowly  rose  and  plunged 
Roaring,  and  all  the  wave  was  in  a  flame. 

One  showed  an  iron  coast  and  angry  waves. 
You  seemed  to  hear  them  rise  and  fall 

And  roar  rock-thwarted  under  bellowing  caves 
Beneath  the  windy  wall. 


ALFRED  TENNYSON  269 

But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep. 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that;  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless 
deep 

Turns  again  home. 


VIII 

Robert  Browning 


VIII 

ROBERT  BROWNING 

Haedly  another  poet  in  the  whole  course  of 
Enghsh  Hterature  has  met  with  such  violent 
and  continuous  partisanship  as  Robert  Brown- 
ing. When  Wordsworth  put  forth  his  epoch- 
making  Httle  volume  of  "Lyrical  Ballads,"  he 
too  met  derision,  but  it  lasted  only  twenty 
years.  By  the  time  he  reached  middle  age  his 
position  as  a  master  was  assured,  and  his  limi- 
tations were  well  understood.  Over  Browning 
disputation  has  continued  longer.  Through- 
out his  life  and  during  the  quarter-century 
since  his  death  he  has  had  ardent  assailants 
and  just  as  ardent  defenders.  Persons  of  stand- 
ing declare  the  man  a  barbarian,  who  broke 
into  the  fair  fields  of  verse  with  poetry  caco- 
phonous in  sound,  obscure  in  expression,  and 
shocking  in  subject.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  those  who  regard  Browning  as  half  divine. 
He  is  a  prophet,  they  say,  and  has  so  disclosed 
to  them  the  significance  of  their  personal  lives 
that  they  cannot  hear  any  criticism  of  him 
without  a  shiver.   Sometimes  Browning  is  set 


274  FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

up  in  laudatory  antagonism  to  Tennyson,  or 
Tennyson  in  antagonism  to  Browning,  and 
certainly  these  poets  do  differ  fundamentally. 
But  are  their  differences  disparaging  or  sup- 
plemental? I  believe  I  shall  find  the  safest 
approach  to  my  heated  subject  if,  without 
praise  or  blame,  I  coolly  note  some  of  the 
points  of  contrast  between  the  two. 

Tennyson  is  English  for  many  generations; 
Browning  is  of  compound  nationality.  Tenny- 
son lived  in  England  and  found  his  subjects 
there;  Browning  lived  long  on  the  continent 
and  gathered  his  subjects  from  everywhere 
except  England.  Tennyson  is  a  university 
man;  Browning  had  a  miscellaneous  educa- 
tion. Tennyson  is  acquainted  with  physical 
science;  Browning  only  with  literature,  many 
literatures.  Tennyson's  life  is  rooted  in  in- 
stitutions; Browning  cares  little  for  them. 
Tennyson  has  a  strong  interest  in  the  social 
and  religious  questions  of  his  age;  Browning 
only  in  the  problem  of  self-development. 
Through  many  generations  Tennyson  was  con- 
nected with  the  Established  Church;  Brown- 
ing, his  parents,  and  his  wife  were  Congre- 
gationalists.  Tennyson  was  an  idealistic  re- 
cluse; Browning  a  realistic  man  of  the  world. 


ROBERT  BROWNING  275 

Tennyson's  figures  are  generalized;  Brown- 
ing's particularized.  Tennyson's  favorite  time 
is  that  of  the  mediaeval  myth;  Browning's  the 
later  Renaissance.  Tennyson  aims  at  beauty, 
through  approved  and  standard  language; 
Browning  at  force  and  expressiveness.  Tenny- 
son chooses  for  subjects  graceful  and  har- 
monious incidents;  Browning  unusual  and 
startling  ones.  Tennyson  is  the  conscious 
artist,  ever  correcting;  Browning  the  spon- 
taneous improvisatore.  Tennyson  has  an 
exceptional  mastery  of  poetic  technique; 
Browning  is  rugged  and  bizarre.  Tennyson 
has  many  of  the  traits  of  a  refined  and  timid 
woman;  Browning  is  all  manliness  and  op- 
timism. Tennyson  was  a  dramatist  at  the  end 
of  his  life;  Browning  at  the  beginning. 

What  amazing  contrasts  are  here!  Yet  the 
two  poets  never  conceived  of  themselves  as 
rivals.  On  the  contrary,  Tennyson  inscribed 
his  "Tiresias"  thus:  "To  my  good  friend, 
Robert  Browning,  whose  genius  and  geniality 
will  best  appreciate  what  may  be  best,  and 
make  most  allowance  for  what  is  worst,  this 
volume  is  affectionately  dedicated."  And 
Browning  had  earlier  written  in  his  volume 
of  "Selections"  these  careful  words:  "Dedi- 


276    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

cated  to  Alfred  Tennyson.  In  poetry  —  illus- 
trious and  consummate.  In  friendship  — 
noble  and  sincere."  It  will  not  then  become 
us  to  take  sides  in  the  fictitious  antagonism. 
Rather,  in  considering  Browning,  we  must  lay 
aside  partisanship  and  endeavor  —  however 
contentious  be  the  ground  —  to  inquire  dispas- 
sionately what  Browning  stands  for.  What  is 
his  type? 

To  determine  this,  let  us  for  a  moment 
turn  back  to  the  Classicists,  as  their  work 
culminated  in  Pope,  and  recall  how  largely 
with  them  poetry  was  removed  from  ordi- 
nary life,  from  the  life  at  least  of  the  individual. 
It  was  a  social  affair.  Its  figures  were  culti- 
vated men  and  women  who  appear  convers- 
ing with  their  kind.  Literature  accordingly 
stood,  as  it  were,  somewhat  apart  from  ordi- 
nary existence,  having  its  own  laws,  its  own 
diction.  It  was  not  called  on  to  mirror  my 
life  or  your  life,  or  to  use  the  language  of  our 
homes.  Of  course  as  time  went  on,  and  es- 
pecially as  the  followers  of  Pope  cheapened 
his  refined  standards,  there  came  a  revolt, 
and  individual  life  was  declared  to  be  the  im- 
portant thing.  When  then  Wordsworth,  as 
the  leader  of  this  Romantic  Movement,  sets 


ROBERT  BROWNING  277 

out  to  depict  the  actualities  of  experience, 
we  should  expect  him  to  bring  before  us  men 
and  women  as  we  find  them  on  the  street. 
But  this  he  did  not  do.  While  turning  away 
from  artificial  human  nature  and  studying 
with  penetrating  veracity  genuine  persons,  he 
was  chiefly  interested  in  those  central  emo- 
tions which  build  up  homes  and  states,  and 
rather  oblivious  to  such  momentary  changes 
as,  going  on  in  all  of  us,  differentiate  man  from 
man.  Precisely  to  these  Tennyson  devotes 
himself  and  thus  gives  to  naturalistic  verse 
a  psychological  depth  it  had  not  previously 
known.  But  he  studies  moods  rather  than 
persons.  The  single  phases  of  humanity  so 
vividly  set  forth  by  him  do  not  properly  be- 
long to  John,  Thomas,  or  Susan,  but  are  uni- 
versal, though  temporary,  aspects  of  any 
human  being.  The  companions  of  Ulysses 
whom  we  meet  in  Lotus  Land  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished from  one  another.  Edward  Gray's 
melancholy  over  Ellen  Adair  might  as  well 
have  been  that  of  Peter  Robinson  for  Mary 
Brown.  IIow  characterless  is  Maud!  "Dead 
perfection,  no  more."  The  delightful  Grand- 
mother is  so  grandmotherly  as  to  belong  to 
no    special   race,   time,   or   village.   All   these 


278    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

people  are  abstractions,  representative  of  single 
traits,  with  as  little  blood  in  them  as  any 
figure  of  Ben  Jonson's  or  Dickens'.  Novelists 
—  Richardson,  Fielding,  Scott,  Miss  Aus- 
ten —  had  long  before  made  their  readers  ac- 
quainted with  total  human  beings.  But  none 
such  had  yet  appeared  in  poetry,  unless  in 
the  pages  of  that  half  poet,  half  novelist, 
Crabbe.  Neither  Byron,  Shelley,  nor  Keats 
knows  anything  of  living  men  and  women. 

There  is  then  something  still  to  be  done  if 
poetry  will  listen  to  Wordsworth's  call,  and, 
abandoning  conventions,  deal  with  the  reali- 
ties of  common  life.  Whoever  can  make  us 
feel  the  complex  and  unstable  unity  of  an 
individual  person  will  introduce  a  new  and 
highly  important  type  into  English  poetry. 
This  is  the  aim  of  Browning,  and  from  it 
spring  most  of  his  pecuharities.  Announce- 
ment of  that  aim  is  made  in  the  preface  to 
"Sordello,"  where  he  writes:  "My  stress  lay 
on  the  incidents  in  the  development  of  a  soul. 
Little  else  is  worth  study."  Accordingly 
Browning  pays  the  least  possible  attention  to 
outward  nature.  Only  two  or  three  of  his 
poems  set  forth  nature  at  all.  There  is  "De 
Gustibus,"  "The  Englishman  in  Italy,"  and 


ROBERT  BROWNING  5^79 

"Home  Thoughts  from  Abroad."  Is  there 
another  in  which  nature  is  the  theme,  or 
even  where,  as  in  Tennyson,  nature  forms  a 
sympathetic  background  for  human  action? 
Browning's  figures  need  no  background.  They 
stand  firmly  on  their  own  feet.  The  disposi- 
tion then  to  turn  to  individual  life  and,  with- 
out apology  or  attempt  to  justify  the  choice 
of  subject  by  any  lesson  it  might  teach;  sim- 
ply to  say,  "The  precious  thing  in  all  the  world 
is  the  personal  being.  Whatever  he  does  and 
says  deserves  attention"  —  this  democratic 
individualism  is  what  gives  distinction  to 
Browning,  though  it  was  also  the  special  gos- 
pel of  his  age.  Carlyle,  Emerson,  Arnold, 
John  Stuart  Mill,  George  Eliot,  were  all  pro- 
claiming it.  Browning  gives  it  appropriate 
form  in  poetry.  The  circumstances  of  his  life 
shaped  him  admirably  for  the  work. 

That  life  is  six  years  shorter  than  Tenny- 
son's, beginning  three  years  later  and  ending 
three  years  earlier;  that  is,  it  extends  from 
1812  to  1889.,  It  divides  itself  into  four 
periods,  in  close  parallelism  to  those  of  Ten- 
nyson. Like  his  too  they  are  entirely  liter- 
ary periods,  not  periods  formed  by  outward 
events.    The  first  we  may  call  his  Juvenile 


280    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

period,  from  his  birth  to  1828,  a  momentous 
date  in  Browning's  hfe;  for  he  then  fell  in 
with  the  poems  of  Shelley.  The  second  is  his 
period  of  Experiment,  from  1828  to  1840  or 
1842,  the  publication  of  the  "Bells  and  Pome- 
granates." Then  comes  his  period  of  Mastery, 
when  at  last  he  has  found  himself,  knows 
exactly  what  his  work  in  the  world  is  to  be, 
and  sets  eagerly  about  it.  This  period  runs 
from  the  "Bells  and  Pomegranates"  to  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book"  in  1870 —  or  if  we  will 
be  exact,  1869.  The  last  is  his  period  of  De- 
cline and  Sophistry,  from  1870  to  1889.  Of 
this  last  I  shall  say  little,  except  that,  while 
it  contains  many  bits  of  vigorous  verse,  his 
fame  would,  in  my  judgment,  be  more  secure 
if  all  written  after  "The  Ring  and  the  Book" 
could  be  struck  out.  It  is  the  early  periods 
which  require  attention.  If  we  would  rightly 
measure  Browning's  subsequent  stature,  we 
must  carefully  observe  his  growth. 

He  was  a  city  boy,  born  at  Camberwell,  a 
suburb  of  London.  In  cities  he  always  made 
his  home,  using  the  country  merely  for  occa- 
sional refreshment.  Tennyson  spent  three 
quarters  of  his  life  in  the  country;  by  birth 
and  education  he  is  connected  with  the  ruling 


ROBERT  BROWNING  281 

class.  Browning  belongs  with  the  average 
multitude.  Probably  his  great-grandfather 
was  a  waiter  at  a  country  inn.  His  grand- 
father came  to  London,  entered  the  service 
of  the  Bank  of  England,  and  rose  rapidly  to 
prominence  and  considerable  wealth.  From 
sharing  in  this  wealth  his  second  wife  cut  off 
the  children  of  the  first  marriage.  Browning's 
father  was  therefore  obliged  to  care  for  him- 
self and  was  unable  to  obtain  a  university 
education.  He  too  became  a  clerk  in  the  Bank 
of  England,  where  by  diligence  he  ultimately 
attained  something  more  than  a  competence. 
Having  always  an  eager  desire  for  knowledge, 
he  accumulated  a  library  of  six  or  seven  thou- 
sand volumes  and  was  able  to  use  books  in 
French,  German,  and  Italian.  He  was  a  genial 
man,  fond  of  drawing  and  writing  stories,  and 
had  always  a  special  fancy  for  whatever  was 
curious  and  unusual. 

I  have  called  Browning  a  man  of  composite 
ancestry,  and  the  fact  affected,  I  believe,  the 
interests  of  his  whole  life.  His  father  was  an 
Englishman,  his  mother  a  Scotch  woman,  her 
father  a  German  merchant  of  Hamburg.  His 
own  father's  mother  was  a  Creole  from  the 
West  Indies.    Four  nationalities  contribute  to 


282    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

the  formation  of  this  extraordinary  man ;  and 
it  has  been  surmised,  though  on  slender  evi- 
dence, that  there  was  also  Jewish  blood  in 
him.  May  not  these  diversities  within  himself 
have  broadened  his  sympathies  and  fitted  him 
more  readily  than  would  have  been  possible 
had  he  been  thoroughly  an  Englishman,  to 
comprehend  and  create  the  many  strange 
creatures  who  move  across  his  pages? 

His  education  was  similarly  miscellaneous. 
The    atmosphere  of  his  home  was  literary, 
and  his  own  early  literary  tastes  were  strong. 
But  they  were  entirely  unguided  by  the  re- 
straints and  standards  of  a  university  or  even 
of  continuous  schooling.   For  only  a  few  years 
at  a  time  was  he  connected  with  any  school. 
For  less  than  a  year  when  he  was  fifteen  he 
attended  a  Greek  class  at  London  Univer- 
sity.  From  that  time  his  father's  library  was, 
as  it  had  always  really  been,  his  chief  source 
of    intellectual    nourishment.     His    constant 
reading  of  unusual  books  made  him  self-edu- 
cated and  a  scholar.   Music  too  he  loved,  and 
under  the  stimulating  guidance  of  his  friend, 
Eliza  Flower,  he  became  an  adept  in  musical 
science.    Strange  that  one  of  the  harshest  of 
modern  poets  should  also  be  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  in  music! 


ROBERT  BROWNING  283 

Early  in  life  he  showed  a  taste  for  poetry 
and  began  to  write  it.  His  father  had  been 
bred  in  the  Classical  tradition  and  looked  with 
disfavor  on  Romanticism.  His  library  was  rich 
too  in  the  Metaphysical  poets.  Quarles  and 
Donne  early  became  favorites  of  young  Brown- 
ing. By  the  time  he  was  twelve  years  old  he 
had  written  a  little  volume  of  verse,  which 
he  desired  to  publish  under  the  title  of  "In- 
condita."  Thus  early  appears  the  taste  for 
fantastic  titles.  The  manuscript  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  critical  judgment  of  a  London 
editor,  Rev.  W.  G.  Fox,  who  advised  against 
its  publication,  and  it  was  destroyed.  But  it 
brought  him,  besides  a  wise  critic,  two  deeply 
valued  friends  introduced  by  Mr.  Fox,  the 
Misses  Flower.  Both  wrote  verse;  Sarah,  the 
younger,  being  the  author  of  the  hymn, 
"Nearer,  my  God,  to  thee,  "  and  the  elder, 
Eliza,  nine  years  older  than  Browning,  con- 
tinuing for  a  long  time  the  object  of  his  ro- 
mantic devotion.  Her  he  idealized  in  Pauline. 
When  in  boyhood  he  declared  that  he  wished 
to  devote  his  life  to  poetry,  his  indulgent 
parents  did  not  gainsay  him.  He  accordingly 
was  prepared  for  no  profession,  but  in  his  fa- 
ther's library  took  all  literature  for  his  province. 


284    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

In  1828  something  momentous  happened. 
Browning  came  upon  a  copy  of  Shelley's 
*' Queen  Mab,"  and  persuaded  his  mother  to 
give  him  the  rest  of  Shelley's  poems  on  his 
next  birthday.  A  new  conception  of  poetry 
was  now  opened  to  him.  Byron  he  had  known 
before.  But  Shelley  disclosed  to  him  the  full 
freedom  of  Romanticism,  its  mysticism,  its 
magical  music,  its  penetrating  exploration  of 
the  human  soul.  Yet  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  he,  like  Tennyson,  made  a  false  start. 
Shelley's  genius  and  his  own  were  at  the  far- 
thest possible  remove.  Tennyson,  after  gain- 
ing a  certain  fluency  from  Byron,  withdrew 
promptly  and  unharmed  to  his  own  proper 
field.  But  Browning  spent  nearly  ten  years 
over  the  impossible  task  of  writing  pieces  as 
shapeless  as  those  of  Shelley.  He  always  felt 
gratitude  for  the  one  who  first  awoke  him, 
but  after  1840  abandoned  him  as  a  guide. 

We  all  know  the  twofold  character  of  Shel- 
ley. He  is  the  inspired  lyrist,  panting  forth 
a  flood  of  rapture  so  divine  as  few  poets  of 
plaintive  passion  have  equalled  in  any  land. 
And  then  he  is  the  creator  of  "Queen  Mab," 
**  Alastor,"  and  the  rest  of  that  ungainly  crew, 
who  at  inordinate  length  preach  the  theories 


ROBERT  BROWNING  285 

of  Godwin  and  the  dreams  of  the  French 
Revolutior}.  The  lyric  Shelley,  the  seer,  lay 
obviously  beyond  Browning's  reach;  but  in 
the  expository  Shelley,  the  teacher,  there  was 
something  which  for  a  time  strongly  attracted 
him.  In  pursuit  of  it  he  wrote  "Pauhne," 
'  *  Paracelsus , "  * '  Sordello  "  —  all  attempts ,  as 
he  says  in  the  preface  to  "Sordello,"  to  trace 
through  successive  stages  the  development 
of  a  soul.  The  long  poem,  with  this  sort  of 
Pilgrim's  Progress  as  its  subject,  was  much 
in  the  fashion  of  the  day.  Shelley's  "Alastor" 
gave  it  impetus  among  the  intellectuals, 
Bailey's  "Festus"  among  the  populace.  Words- 
worth shaped  it  into  a  masterpiece  in  his 
"Prelude."  No  wonder  that  Browning,  who 
was  to  become  a  closer  student  of  character 
than  any  previous  poet,  felt  himself  drawn 
to  it  at  the  beginning  of  his  career.  In  1833, 
three  years  after  Tennyson's  "Poems  Chiefly 
Lyrical"  appeared  (and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  there  was  three  years'  difference  in  the 
ages  of  the  two  poets).  Browning  put  forth 
"Pauline,"  following  her  in  1835  with  "Par- 
acelsus," and  in  1840  with  "Sordello."  In 
each  of  these,  by  different  methods,  he  at- 
tempted to  trace  the  formation  of  a  particu- 


286    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

lar  individual  throughout  the  entire  extent 
of  his  Hfe;  to  see  him  aspiring,  faihng,  groping 
and  ever  moving  from  a  small  understand- 
ing of  himself  and  the  world  to  a  large.  All 
these  books  were  published  at  the  expense  of 
members  of  Browning's  family,  and  all  failed. 
Few  copies  were  sold  and  little  notice  of  them 
was  taken.  Here  and  there  were  readers  in- 
trepid enough  to  find  their  way  through  the 
literary  jungle  to  merit.  But  they  were  nat- 
urally few. 

Already,  however,  in  1837  the  actor  Mac- 
ready  thought  he  could  detect  underneath  the 
intricacies  of  Browning's  early  books  a  talent 
for  portraying  character.  He  asked  Browning 
for  a  play,  and  "Strafford"  was  produced 
five  nights  at  Covent  Garden.  It  was  expected 
to  run  three  weeks.  Browning  and  his  hard- 
ened eulogists  have  always  blamed  the  actors 
for  its  withdrawal;  but  a  single  reading  should 
convince  any  one  that  the  play  itself  made 
failure  inevitable.  Yet  the  attempt  at  play- 
writing  formed  an  important  second  step  in 
Browning's  advance  toward  individual  por- 
traiture. 

The  method  first  tried  had  been  a  serial  one, 
stage  succeeding  stage  in  the  development  of 


ROBERT  BROWNING  287 

a  person.  It  had  proved  too  theoretic,  vague, 
and  dilatory  for  a  genius  so  forcibly  concrete 
as  Browning.  A  drama  removes  these  objec- 
tionable features.  A  rounded  individual  is 
then  at  once  thrown  open  to  inspection,  as  he 
sets  forth  his  own  point  of  view  in  contrast 
with  that  of  opposing  characters.  This  would 
seem  to  be  the  very  field  in  which  Browning 
would  shine.  For  half  a  dozen  years  he  thought 
so,  and  spoke  of  himself  as  "Robert  Browning, 
writer  of  plays."  Each  year  saw  a  new  trag- 
edy fall  from  his  rapid  pen.  Occasionally,  as 
in  the  first  two  acts  of  "Pippa  Passes,"  some- 
thing vivid  and  memorable  was  produced.  But 
in  general.  Browning's  plays  lack  distinction. 
Long  speeches  occur  where  swift  action  is 
needed.  The  plot  is  obviously  managed,  in- 
stead of  unfolding  itself,  and  the  characters, 
though  often  strange,  are  unimpressive.  Grad- 
ually it  became  plain,  even  to  Browning  him- 
self, that  he  had  not  yet  found  his  proper  field. 
In  1841  a  new  project  was  formed.  Since 
managers  refused  his  plays  and  the  public 
his  books.  Browning's  father  arranged  with 
Moxon  to  issue  a  play  from  time  to  time  in 
pamphlet  form.  For  the  series  Browning 
chose  the  repellent  name  of  "Bells  and  Pome- 


288    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

granates."  Few  copies  selling,  even  at  the 
tempting  price  of  sixpence,  Moxon  suggested 
that  some  poems  of  a  briefer  sort  be  added; 
and  accordingly  in  the  third  number,  in  1842, 
appeared  the  beginning  of  that  wonderful 
series  of  "Dramatic  Lyrics"  in  which  Brown- 
ing at  last  found  his  sure  mode  of  expression. 

The  form  of  these  pieces  is  the  monologue, 
the  drama  of  a  single  speaker.  So  peculiarly 
suited  to  Browning  is  the  scheme  that  we 
are  apt  to  think  it  his  invention.  But  it  has 
been  used  in  all  periods  of  English  poetry. 
Drayton's  "Heroical  Epistles"  are  mono- 
logues; so  are  Pope's  "Eloisa  to  Abelard"  and 
Cowper's  "Alexander  Selkirk."  Tennyson  in 
"St.  Simeon  Stylites"  employed  it  as  early, 
and  afterwards  almost  as  frequently,  as 
Browning  himself;  in  "Maud"  giving  it 
greater  variety  than  does  Browning  in  "James 
Lee's  Wife."  No,  in  the  monologue  Browning 
merely  accepted  a  not  uncommon  form  as 
an  instrument  for  painting  individual  charac- 
ter more  accurately  than  was  possible  in  the 
sequent  study  of  a  single  soul  or  the  conver- 
sation of  a  contrasted  group.  As  soon  as 
Browning  had  created  the  Dramatic  Lyric  he 
abandoned  play-writing  altogether.    The  new 


ROBERT  BROWNING  289 

method  preserved  all  that  was  valuable  both 
in  it  and ,  its  lumbering  predecessor,  attained 
the  full  individualism  at  which  Romanticism 
had  long  unsuccessfully  aimed,  introduced 
a  new  type  into  English  poetry,  and  brought 
before  its  readers  such  a  company  of  living 
men  and  women  as  it  had  not  seen  since  Chau- 
cer died. 

For  Browning  added  elements  to  the  mono- 
logue which  greatly  increased  its  power  and 
adapted  it  to  his  special  work.  They  do  not 
appear  in  all  his  pieces  in  equal  degree.  But 
about  in  proportion  to  their  presence  and 
prominence  is  the  importance  of  the  poem. 
As  they  become  blurred,  the  monologue  loses 
something  of  its  quality.  They  are  these:  (1) 
His  monologue  is  dramatic,  addressed  to  a 
Hstener.  (2)  It  is  psychological,  disclosing 
the  speaker  rather  than  what  is  spoken  of. 
(3)  It  is  comprehensive  and  sums  up  a  com- 
plex and  habitual  character.  I  will  explain 
briefly  each  of  these  points. 

Browning's  monologue  at  its  best  —  as  in 
"Andrea  del  Sarto,"  "Fra  Lippo  Lippi," 
"Clive,"  "The  Laboratory,"  "In  a  Year" 
—  is  no  mere  soliloquy,  a  piece  of  mtrospec- 
tive  analysis,  as  most  preceding  monologues 


290    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Lad  been.  His  are  veritable  dramas,  involving 
several  persons,  to  only  one  of  whom  do  we 
attend.  The  mind  of  him  who  speaks  is  every- 
where in  contact  with  another  mind,  which  it 
seeks  to  bring  over  to  its  own  point  of  view. 
It  is  as  if  we  stood  by  a  telephone  and  heard 
its  user  speak  to  a  distant  friend,  and  were 
left  to  guess  at  the  situation  by  the  fragmen- 
tary utterances  of  only  one  side.  But  it  is 
dialogue  still.  An  unseen  interlocutor  is  there, 
and  what  we  hear  has  constant  reference  to 
his  thought.  Undoubtedly  there  are  shadings 
between  such  completed  monologues  and 
sohloquy.  In  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  most 
of  the  speakers  seek  to  impress  their  own  view 
of  the  case  on  definite  persons.  The  Pope  does 
not.  He  is  alone  and  soliloquizes.  But  his  is 
not  like  Abt  Volger's  or  Johannes  Agricola's, 
mere  soliloquy;  for  he  addresses  a  plea  for 
mercy  or  condemnation  to  God,  the  Church, 
public  opinion,  and  argues  it  out  with  each. 
The  dramatic  advantage  of  such  monologue 
over  the  ordinary  play  lies  in  the  concentra- 
tion of  interest.  Where  all  else  is  subordi- 
nated to  a  single  individual,  we  more  readily 
identify  ourselves  with  him  than  if  he  were 
but  one  of  a  group. 


ROBERT  BROWNING  291 

But  if  the  monologue,  unlike  the  soliloquy, 
has  an  objective  reference  to  a  supposed  au- 
ditor and  outward  situation,  our  interest  is 
not  fixed  on  these.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
but  a  means  for  giving  to  the  speaker  an  im- 
portance greater  even  than  he  has  in  the  solil- 
oquy, and  far  greater  than  in  the  narrative. 
They  might  be  compared  to  a  sounding-board, 
reflecting  back  in  fuller  tone  the  character  of 
the  speaker.  In  judging  another,  we  judge 
ourselves.  Our  estimate  of  a  person  or  event 
may  be  incorrect;  but  if  given  at  an  un- 
guarded moment,  it  is  stamped  with  the  im- 
press of  him  who  makes  it.  This  is  the  pro- 
found truth  on  which  Browning's  monologue 
is  based.  In  order  to  present  a  person,  it  is 
unnecessary  to  trace  successive  "incidents 
in  the  development  of  a  soul,"  to  watch  the 
man's  behavior  in  society,  or  to  hear  him  solil- 
oquize. There  is  a  shorter  and  more  illumin- 
ating way.  A  minute  of  a  life  as  truly  con- 
tains the  character  as  fifty  years.  If  we  would 
know  what  a  man  is,  we  have  only  to  throw 
a  flashlight  on  him  at  a  crisis-moment  and 
watch  his  reaction.  That  is  Browning's  new 
method.  The  serial  scafi'olding  is  torn  down, 
the  group  dismissed,  the  narrative  suppressed. 


292    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Only  the  dramatic  essence  remains  —  a  mind 
reacting  on  a  defined  person  and  situation. 
The  first  ten  years  of  Browning's  authorship 
had  been  spent  on  the  sohloquy,  the  narra- 
tive, and  the  play;  and  the  first  two  of  these 
were  still  to  ravage  his  last  twenty  years. 
Even  during  his  years  of  Mastery  the  narra- 
tive appears  as  late  as  1845  in  the  beautiful 
"Italian  in  England,"  the  soliloquy  in  "Christ- 
mas Eve"  of  1850,  and  something  like  a  play 
in  "In  a  Balcony"  of  1853.  But  these  forms 
are  now  subordinate.  A  shorter  and  more 
luminous  method  has  been  found. 

It  should  be  noticed  too  that  while  Brown- 
ing's flashlight  is  usually  a  brief  affair,  it  il- 
luminates not  a  single  mood  but  a  total  com- 
plex individual.  For  this  it  is  peculiarly  fitted. 
Tennyson  shows  us  in  "Sir  Galahad"  only 
chivalric  purity;  but  Browning's  Duke,  dis- 
playing the  picture  of  his  last  Duchess,  is 
himself  a  full-length  portrait.  His  dignity, 
courtesy,  cruelty,  interest  in  sculpture,  in 
painting,  unite,  unconsciously  and  without 
exaggeration,  to  show  this  cross-section  of  a 
Renaissance  aristocrat.  As  Browning's  aim, 
too,  is  not  moral  instruction  but  the  dispas- 
sionate study  of  individual  character,  good 


ROBERT  BROWNING  293 

and  evil  qualities  are  allowed  to  intertwine  in 
the  same  perplexing  fashion  as  in  actual  life. 

Here  then  is  a  new  and  majestic  type,  and 
one  of  deep  consequence  for  the  depicting  of 
humanity  in  English  poetry.  Of  course  Words- 
worth, Tennyson,  and  Browning  all  alike  deal 
with  human  nature.  But  Wordsworth  deals 
with  its  fundamentals,  Tennyson  with  its 
single  moods,  and  only  after  long  waiting  does 
individual  man  come  to  his  own.  With  Brown- 
ing the  creation  of  character  is  its  own  abun- 
dant justification.  When  a  poet  can  truly 
say,  "Here  they  are,  my  fifty  men  and  women," 
we  have  no  right  to  ask  if  they  are  such  as 
will  be  socially  valuable. 

Nor  must  we  be  disturbed  at  certain  un- 
pleasing  characteristics  sure  to  mark  the  work 
of  such  a  poet.  Laying  stress  on  the  individ- 
ual factor  in  life  rather  than  the  social,  he 
will  be  disposed  to  care  little  for  beauty,  good 
taste,  and  conventional  refinement,  and  will 
pick  out  subjects  that  are  peculiar,  erratic, 
even  abnormal.  In  boyhood  BrowTiing  cared 
for  strange  pets,  bizarre  stories,  forced  rhymes. 
They  prepared  him  for  his  realistic  work. 
His  poems  introduce  us  to  people  who  are 
half    insane  —  Porphyria's    Lover,    Giraldus, 


294    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Childe  Roland  —  or  to  those  morally  repul- 
sive, like  Fifine,  Sludge,  and  Guido  Frances- 
chini.  Yet  when  abnormal  persons  are  shown 
to  be  living  creatures,  our  hearts  beat  in 
sympathetic  response.  Nothing  human  is 
without  interest.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  if  these  strange  beings  are  to  be  trans- 
ferred imaginatively  to  printed  pages,  they 
will  use  their  own  language.  It  would  be  bad 
art  to  offer  them  the  standard  language,  such 
as  is  current  among  ladies  and  gentlemen. 
Not  being  ladies  and  gentlemen,  they  should 
use  the  language  which  accords  with  their 
special  character.  It  will  not  do  to  be  shocked 
at  a  diction  unheard  in  poetry  before. 

On  similar  grounds  some  excuse  may  be 
found  for  Browning's  notorious  obscurities. 
They  spring  from  fecundity,  not  feebleness. 
He  can  say  anything  he  pleases,  and  say  it 
with  utmost  precision.  But  what  pleases  him 
does  not  always  please  us.  He  is  a  man  richly 
endowed,  venturing  into  strange  regions.  His 
crowding  thoughts  often  obtrude  on  one  an- 
other, and  if  we  fail  to  catch  his  point  of 
view,  we  do  not  readily  comprehend  him. 
From  usual  modes  of  speech,  as  from  usual 
characters,  he  is  constitutionally  averse.    In 


ROBERT  BROW^^ING  295 

a  letter  in  my  possession  sent  him  from  New 
Zealand,  in  1846,  by  his  friend  Alfred  Domett 
—  the  "Waring"  of  his  poem — Domett 
writes:  "As  regards  your  books,  I  have  one 
first  and  last  request  to  make  or  advice  to 
give  you.  Do  for  Heaven's  sake  try  to  be  com- 
monplace. Strain  as  much  for  it  as  weaker 
poets  do  against  it.  And  always  write  for 
fools.  Think  of  them  as  your  audience,  in- 
stead of  the  Sidneys  and  Marvells  and  Lan- 
dors.  Ask  some  one  —  the  dullest,  plodding- 
est  acquaintance  you  have  —  how  he  or  she 
(if  you  can  find  a  woman  quite  stupid  enough) 
would  have  expressed  your  thought,  and  take 
his  or  her  arrangement.  Will  you  do  this?  I 
fear  not.  Yet  I  know  that  herein  lies  your  tru- 
est course."  Browning  preserved  the  letter 
but  rejected  the  advice.  As  an  improvisatore 
of  singular  genius,  he  could  learn  nothing  from 
criticism.  The  more  the  public  grumbled,  the 
more  firmly  he  set  his  teeth  and  walked  his 
devious  way.  We  may  regret  that  he  could 
not,  like  Tennyson,  draw  aid  from  his  enemies. 
But  genius  has  its  limitations  and  compul- 
sions. He  was  not  writing  for  others,  but 
merely  to  create  children  of  his  brain,  writing 
for  himself.    All  we  can  ask  of  such  a  man  is 


^96    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

that  he  accept  good-naturedly  the  isolation 
involved  in  his  work.  Browning  did  not  do 
so,  but  from  time  to  time  bitterly  complained 
that  he  was  not  understood.  So  individual  a 
writer,  attempting  an  altogether  new  line 
should  have  been  as  indifferent  to  pul^lic 
opinion  as  was  Wordsworth.  Browning  was 
resentful  of  disparagement  and  strangely 
tolerant  of  organized  adulation.  Some  social 
feeling  is  apt  to  linger  about  the  extremest 
individualist. 

Yet  while  the  creation  of  individual  charac- 
ters was  the  special  function  of  Browning,  he 
was  not  always  able  to  carry  it  out  dispas- 
sionately. He  too  was  an  individual,  pos- 
sessed of  beliefs,  moral  approvals,  and  a  tem- 
perament of  his  own.  Through  these  he  views 
the  characters  he  constructs,  and  by  these 
they  are  liable  to  be  distorted.  A  great  poet 
is  distinguished  from  a  poetic  writer  by  the 
very  fact  that  he  has  acquired  a  fixed  point  of 
view  from  which  to  survey  all  that  comes  be- 
fore him.  Nobody  can  be  impressive  without 
a  creed,  gospel,  or  set  of  habitual  ideas  with 
which  he  confronts  the  world.  What  we  may 
call  the  creed  of  Browning  is,  if  I  rightly  under- 
stand it,  something  like  this: 


ROBERT  BROWNING  297 

To  each  man  there  is  intrusted  a  unique 
character,  imlike  all  others,  but  incomplete, 
and  with  higher  and  lower  possibilities.  Which 
of  these  possibilities  shall  prevail  is  determined 
by  the  man's  own  action  at  crisis-moments, 
which  in  themselves  are  often  small.  Sin,  for 
Browning,  is  therefore,  for  the  most  part,  in- 
jury to  one's  self  rather  than  to  society;  and 
conventional  sins  are  little  regarded.  The 
world  is  for  each  of  us  a  place  of  moral  train- 
ing and  discipline,  and  has  meaning  only  as 
material  out  of  which  a  person  may  be  formed. 
A  world  so  constituted  implies  a  God,  whose 
existence  cannot  be  independently  proved 
but  is  involved  in  the  whole  framework  of 
things.  His  presence  is  testified  to  by  the 
Bible  and  by  the  consciousness  of  all  men  at 
their  highest.  This  God  is  a  being  of  power 
and  knowledge,  though  still  like  ourselves. 
In  ourselves  we  see  that  power  and  knowledge 
are  merely  instrumental  to  love,  which  is  the 
highest  manifestation  of  personality.  Were 
God  without  love,  we  should  be  his  superiors. 
Browning  does  not  then  conceive  God  as 
manifested  in  law,  that  is,  in  scientific  fashion; 
but  as  the  life-principle  of  love,  in  an  individ- 
ualistic way.    Matter  is  but  a  lower   form   of 


298    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

spirit,  and  what  look  like  circumstances  are, 
in  reality,  only  a  reflex  of  the  person.  God 
lovingly  imparts  to  us  the  germs  of  his  own  life. 
Consequently  there  is  an  immortality  of  ac- 
tivity open  to  each  of  us,  whether  in  ever  fresh 
existence  or  in  a  single  continuous  existence. 
But  recognition  will  always  be  possible.  Any- 
thing but  optimism  is  stupid  and  cowardly. 

Such  in  briefest  outline  is  Browning's  creed, 
the  body  of  ideas  through  which  he  interprets 
the  world.  A  noble  creed  it  is,  with  which  in 
substance  I  heartily  agree.  Yet  it  is  not  the 
primary  business  of  an  artist  to  inculcate  doc- 
trine. Doctrine,  of  course,  will  underlie  his 
work,  just  as  it  underlies  all  hfe.  Our  world 
is  bound  together  by  laws  or  principles,  which 
no  true  representation  of  it  can  disregard. 
But  they  are  mixed  with  things,  and  to  de- 
tach them  for  separate  statement  destroys 
that  concrete  unity  which  it  is  the  artist's 
oflSce  to  discover  and  present.  We  may  say, 
if  we  like,  that  Hamlet  teaches  the  dangers  of 
delay,  and  Antony  those  of  impulse.  But  the 
plays  were  not  constructed  for  that  purpose. 
Shakspere  sought  merely  to  present  an  in- 
teresting section  of  human  life,  and  did  it  with 
such  truth  that  we  can  draw  from  it  a  moral 


ROBERT  BROWNING  299 

lesson,  as  we  can  from  nature  itself.  The 
artist  is  primarily  a  seer,  not  a  teacher.  His 
characters  and  situations  are  no  mere  means 
to  moral  instruction  as  ends.  They  are  them- 
selves their  own  end. 

Now  notwithstanding  Browning's  extraor- 
dinary power  of  artistic  creation,  he  will  not 
always  submit  to  its  laws,  but  often  puts  into 
a  poem  matter  which  the  subject  does  not 
demand.  He  has  some  theory  to  maintain, 
some  lesson  to  impart,  some  clever  thought  has 
struck  him,  and  he  steps  forward  to  offer  his 
own  ideas  instead  of  leaving  us  to  view  the 
mind  of  an  imagined  character.  No  doubt  it 
was  diflScult  to  be  a  dispassionate  expositor. 
His  beliefs  were  clear  and  urgent,  and  it  is 
much  more  natural  for  the  Englishman  and 
American  to  turn  to  moralizing  than  to  art. 
The  art-sense  is  feeble  among  readers  to-day. 
Then  too  strong  influences  were  unhappily 
brought  to  bear,  impelling  Browning  away 
from  his  unique  office  of  character-creator  to 
be  the  deliverer  of  a  moral  "message."  Read 
the  following  passage  from  one  of  the  letters 
of  Miss  Barrett  to  him  just  after  he  had  dis- 
covered his  new  method  and  had  begun  to 
apply  it  in  constructive  work.    On  May  2G, 


300    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

1846,   immediately  preceding  their  marriage 
she  writes: 

"But  you  —  you  have  the  superabundant 
mental  life  and  individuality  which  admits  of 
shifting  a  personality  and  speaking  the  truth 
still.  That  is  the  highest  faculty,  the  strongest 
and  rarest  which  exercises  itself  in  art  —  we 
are  all  agreed  there  is  none  so  great  faculty 
as  the  dramatic.  Several  times  you  have  hinted 
to  me  that  I  made  you  careless  for  the  drama, 
and  it  has  puzzled  me  to  fancy  how  it  could 
be,  when  I  understand  myself  so  clearly  both 
the  difficulty  and  the  glory  of  dramatic  art. 
Yet  I  am  conscious  of  wishing  you  to  take  the 
other  crown  besides,  and  after  having  made 
your  own  creatures  speak  in  clear  human 
voices,  to  speak  yourself  out  of  that  person- 
ality which  God  made,  and  with  the  voice 
which  He  tuned  into  such  power  and  sweet- 
ness of  speech.  I  do  not  think  that,  with  all 
that  music  in  you,  only  your  own  personality 
should  be  dumb,  nor  that  having  thought  so 
much  and  deeply  on  life  and  its  ends,  you 
should  not  teach  what  you  have  learnt  in  the 
direct  and  most  impressive  way,  the  mask 
thrown  off,  however  moist  with  the  breath. 
And  it  is  not,  I  believe,  by  the  dramatic  me- 


ROBERT  BROWNING  301 

dium  that  poets  teach  most  impressively.  I 
have  seemed  to  observe  that!  It  is  too  diffi- 
cult for  the  common  reader  to  analyze  and  to 
discern  between  the  vivid  and  the  earnest. 
Also  he  is  apt  to  understand  better  always  when 
he  sees  the  hps  move.  Now  here  is  yourself 
with  your  wonderful  faculty !  —  it  is  won- 
dered at  and  recognized  on  all  sides  where 
there  are  eyes  to  see  —  it  is  called  wonderful 
and  admirable!  Yet  with  an  inferior  power 
you  might  have  taken  yourself  closer  to  the 
hearts  and  hves  of  men,  and  made  yourself 
dearer,  though  being  less  great.  Therefore  I 
do  want  you  to  do  this  with  your  surpassing 
power  —  it  will  be  so  easy  to  you  to  speak, 
and  so  noble  when  spoken. 

"Not  that  I  use  n't  to  fancy  I  could  see  you 
and  know  you,  in  a  reflex  image,  in  your  crea- 
tions! I  used,  you  remember.  How  these 
broken  lights  and  forms  look  strange  and  un- 
like now  to  me  when  I  stand  by  the  complete 
idea!  Yes,  now  I  feel  that  no  one  can  know  you 
worthily  by  these  poems.  Only  —  I  guessed 
a  little.  Now  let  us  have  your  own  voice  speak- 
ing of  yourself  —  if  the  voice  may  not  hurt  tlie 
speaker —  which  is  my  fear." 

How  exquisitely  said,  and  how  poisonous  I 


302    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Not  only  too  was  this  poison  given  by  her 
who  was  dearest,  it  came  from  the  outside 
world  as  well.  That  Dr.  Furnival  who  founded 
the  Browning  Societies  writes  thus,  in  eulogy 
of  Browning's  Essay  on  Shelley : 

*'The  interest  in  this  piece  lay  in  the  fact 
that  Browning's  utterances  here  are  his,  and 
not  those  of  any  one  of  the  so  many  imagin- 
ary persons  behind  whom  he  insists  on  so 
often  hiding  himself,  and  whose  necks  I  for 
one  should  continually  like  to  wring,  whose 
bodies  I  would  fain  kick  out  of  the  way,  in 
order  to  get  face  to  face  with  the  poet  himself, 
and  hear  his  own  voice  speaking  his  own 
thoughts,  man  to  man,  and  soul  to  soul. 
Straight  speaking,  straight  hitting  suit  me 
best." 

Yes,  they  always  suit  the  prosaic  English- 
man best.  In  his  mind  the  teacher  is  regu- 
larly set  above  the  artist.  In  Browning's  po- 
etry both  are  present.  It  is  strange  that  when 
in  a  neighboring  art  Browning  had  called 
attention  to  this  distinction  between  natural- 
istic portraiture  and  endeavor  after  edifica- 
tion, and  given  strong  preference  to  the  for- 
mer, he  should  so  frequently  in  his  own  art 
have  taken  the  lower  course.    In  his  poem  of 


ROBERT  BROWNING  303 

"Fra  Lippo  Lippi"  we  see  the  painter  cover- 
ing the  walls  of  his  cloister  with  pictures  of 
unmistakable  men  and  women.  Then  we  hear 
the  Prior's  reproach: 

"How?   What's  here? 
Quite  from  the  mark  of  painting!  Bless  us  all! 
Faces,  arms,  legs,  and  bodies,  like  the  true 
As  much  as  pea  and  pea!  It's  devil's  game. 
Your  business  is  not  to  catch  men  with  show. 
With  honor  to  the  perishable  clay. 
But  lift  them  over  it,  ignore  it  all." 

To  which  Fra  Lippo  replies: 

"Say  there's  beauty  with  no  soul  at  all 
(I  never  saw  it,  put  the  case  the  same). 
If  you  get  simple  beauty  and  naught  else. 
You  get  about  the  best  thing  God  invents." 

What  a  pity  that  Browning,  abandoning  nat- 
uralistic representation,  for  which  he  had  as 
fine  a  genius  as  the  Florentine  monk,  should 
so  frequently  have  given  way  to  sententious 
moralizings! 

We  hardly  exaggerate  when  we  say  that 
there  are  two  Brownings:  one,  the  seer,  who 
firmly  and  disinterestedly  pursues  his  con- 
structive art  and,  having  observed  all  the 
subtleties  of  a  character,  is  satisfied  if  he  can 
present  us  a  living  being  who  announces  no 
"lesson";  and  then  there  is  the  teacher,  who 


304    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

cannot  escape  from  himself  and  is  busy  with 
inculcating  his  own  special  creed.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  as  time  wetit  on,  this  facile  teacher, 
emancipated  from  the  restraint  of  character- 
building,  took  on  more  and  more  the  voice  of 
Browning,  became  ever  more  wordy,  and  re- 
corded more  clumsily  in  rugged  rhythms  what- 
ever random  reflections  came  into  his  head. 
Browning  had  always  loved  argument  and 
been  amused  to  see  what  might  be  said  in 
behalf  of  a  bad  cause.  This  tendency  to  soph- 
istry grew  upon  him.  We  see  it  at  its  best  in 
portions  of  "The  Ring  and  the  Book";  at  its 
worst,  in  "Fifine"  and  in  the  "Parleyings." 
In  Browning's  last  period  little  sense  of  form 
remains.  He  often  seems  to  write  merely  in 
order  to  let  loose  the  miscellaneous  workings 
of  his  mind.  Only  occasionally  is  it  worth 
while  to  read  what  follows  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book."  After  that  time  the  teacher,  the  soph- 
ist, the  random  talker,  are  chiefly  in  evidence; 
the  constructive  artist  has  pretty  completely 
disappeared.  It  may  help  some  of  my  readers 
to  trace  for  themselves  the  two  tendencies 
in  Browning  if  I  group  together  a  few  illus- 
trative poems.  Much  of  his  work  admits  no 
Buch  clear  classification.  The  same  poem  often 


ROBERT  BROWNING  305 

contains  material  of  different  kinds.  But  if 
we  select  a  group  to  show  Browning's  power 
as  a  constructive  artist,  it  will  include  such  as 
these:  "The  Bishop  Orders  His  Tomb,"  "An- 
drea del  Sarto,"  "Childe  Roland,"  "The  Flight 
of  the  Duchess,"  "In  a  Gondola,"  "James  Lee's 
Wife,"  "The  Italian  in  England,"  "Confes- 
sions," "Herv^e  Kiel,"  "Life  at  a  Villa,"  "The 
Glove,"  "My  Last  Duchess."  All  these 
poems  move  us  by  the  imaginative  accuracy 
with  which  the  particular  person  or  situation 
is  presented. 

A  second  group  may  show  how  oftentimes, 
though  doctrine  is  evidently  the  object  of  the 
poem,  it  still  embodies  itself  in  concrete,  per- 
sonal form:  "Fra  Lippo  Lippi,"  "The  Statue 
and  the  Bust,"  "Caliban  Upon  Setebos,'* 
"Saul,"  "Cleon,"  "The  Strange  Epistle  of 
Karshish,"  "A  Grammarian's  Funeral."  These 
are  all  intended  to  teach  something,  but  they 
teach  in  a  dramatic  way. 

And  then  we  go  over  into  the  poems  of 
preaching,  directly  announcing  abstract  truths. 
A  little  group  of  the  strongest  would  be  these: 
"Abt  Vogler,"  "One  Word  More,"  "Old  Pic- 
tures in  Florence,"  "Any  Wife  to  any  Hus- 
band," "A  Death  in   the   Desert,"   "Rabbi 


306    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

Ben  Ezra."  The  last  may  be  regarded  as  Brown- 
ing's reply  to  Omar  Khayyam;  "A  Death  in 
the  Desert,"  his  reply  to  Strauss.  Such  verse 
makes  interesting  reading;  but  the  interest  is 
a  moral  one.  It  has  little  to  do  with  imagina- 
tive art. 

In  "The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  written  at 
the  height  of  his  powers  and  after  long  ex- 
perimentation in  other  fields,  Browning  has 
left  a  complete  epitome  of  his  genius.  The 
piece  is  of  colossal  proportions,  original,  terri- 
fic, and,  subtly  imaginative  beyond  any  poem 
of  its  century.  In  scope  and  majesty  it  takes 
no  presumptuous  place  beside  the  glories  of 
our  earlier  poetry,  with  "Troilus  and  Criseyde," 
"The  Faerie Queene,"  "King Lear,"  and  "Sam- 
son Agonistes."  The  Greeks  had  a  way  of 
choosing  some  hideous  legend,  "presenting 
Thebes  or  Pelops'  line,"  and  by  its  complete 
presentation  in  mellifluous  language  letting 
pity  and  fear  effect  their  own  purgation.  That 
is  what  Browning  has  done.  The  squalid  cir- 
cumstances of  a  Roman  murder  trial  more 
than  two  centuries  gone  by,  he  has  made  to 
live  again  as  a  thing  of  beauty  and  moral 
significance,  acquainting  us  with  the  special 
temper  of  its  distant  time  and  with  the  base- 


ROBERT  BROWNING  307 

ness  and  exaltation  which  belong  to  human- 
ity at  all 'times.  In  these  twenty  thousand 
lines,  put  together  during  nine  years,  there  is 
room  enough  for  all  Browning's  characteris- 
tics to  find  their  place  without  damage  to 
the  total  structure.  Here  are  his  argumenta- 
tion, his  searching  psychology,  his  wide-rang- 
ing reading  and  observation,  his  interest  in 
whatever  is  peculiar  and  out  of  the  way,  his 
profound  religious  sense,  his  tenderness,  bru- 
tality, and  optimism,  his  love  of  mental  ad- 
venture, occasionally  too  his  mere  loquacity. 
A  strange  mixture  it  is,  wrought  out  in  what 
I  have  called  the  completed  form  of  his  mono- 
logue, with  appropriate  attendant  listeners, 
without  soliloquy,  narrative,  or  "message," 
and  finding  its  sufficient  end  in  a  marvellous 
group  of  contrasted  personalities. 

"The  Ring  and  the  Book"  too  announces 
with  startling  clearness  a  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  Browning's  art  to  which  I  have  hither- 
to paid  too  little  attention.  It  is  the  principle 
of  "the  point  of  view,"  and  with  it  his  special 
type  of  poetry  is  inherently  connected.  We 
know  how  insistently  personal  that  poetry 
is.  Each  man  is  uniciue;  his  nature,  nurture, 
and  circumstance  diii'eriug  in  some  respects 


308    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

from  that  of  his  neighbor.  Accordingly  the 
powers  by  which  we  apprehend  truth  will 
vary,  and  what  is  true  for  one  of  us  will  not 
be  true  for  another.  There  is  no  standard  set 
of  powers  by  reference  to  which  absolute 
truth  may  be  known.  Reality  is  always  rela- 
tive. Each  of  us  brings  with  him  a  point  of 
view,  from  which  he  cannot  escape.  The  doc- 
trine of  the  point  of  view  accordingly  underlies 
all  that  Browning  writes.  Something  per- 
sonal is  always  added  to  reality  as  a  formative 
factor  whenever  we  approach  a  fact.  In  "The 
Ring  and  the  Book"  what  we  call  the  same 
story  is  told  by  nine  different  people,  and  to 
the  last  we  do  not  know  —  nor  very  much 
care  —  what  the  facts  in  themselves  may 
really  be.  We  only  know  how  they  look  from 
these  several  points  of  view.  The  wise  man 
then  will  fix  his  attention  rather  on  the  be- 
holder than  on  the  things  alleged  to  be  beheld. 
"There's  nothing  either  good  or  bad  but 
thinking  makes  it  so,"  Hamlet  says.  To  com- 
prehend a  human  soul.  Browning  has  told  us, 
is  the  one  thing  in  the  world  deserving  study. 
The  great  service  of  the  poets  lies  in  their 
teaching  us  to  look  at  the  world  from  other 
points  of  view  than  our  own. 


ROBERT  BROWNING  S09 

Now  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  is  a  veri- 
table school  for  this  sort  of  instruction,  and 
that  its  teachings  may  impress  us  the  more, 
they  are  conveyed  in  triadic  form.  Three 
groups,  with  three  contrasted  members  in 
each,  report  to  us  what  they  know,  and  there- 
fore what  they  are.  A  ghastly  murder  occurred 
at  Rome  in  1679.  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi,  a 
priest,  ran  away  from  Arezzo  to  Rome  with 
Pompilia,  the  girl-wife  of  Guido  Franceschini, 
a  brutal  and  impoverished  noble.  Guido  pur- 
sued the  fugitives  and  subsequently  killed 
Pompilia  and  her  reputed  parents,  he  himself 
being  finally  executed.  Each  of  these  three 
chief  actors  in  the  affair  tells  his  story,  no  two 
alike.  But  the  people  of  Rome  are  likewise 
interested,  one  part  of  them  taking  the  wife's 
side,  one  the  husband's;  and  besides  these, 
those  who,  putting  away  all  sentiment,  see 
right  on  each  side  and  pride  themselves  on 
judging  all  by  pure  intellect.  Each  one  of 
this  group  not  involved  in  the  affair  lets  us 
learn  how  his  mind  has  been  affected.  Then 
appears  the  legal  group,  the  advocate  of  each 
party  with  the  Pope,  the  judge  of  all.  At  the 
very  last,  and  after  Guido  is  condemned  and  is 
about  to  pass  from  his  prison  to  go  to  the  scaf- 


310    FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY 

fold,  he  is  allowed  to  speak  once  more,  and 
then  discloses  a  side  of  himself  and  his  story 
unlike  what  was  heard  before. 

Here  then  a  story  is  told  ten  times  without 
ever  failing  in  interest.  This  is  because  by 
Browning's  "new  method"  the  event  is  trans- 
fused through  personalities  which  it  illumi- 
nates in  every  part.  Where  else  outside  Shak- 
spere  has  individual  experience  been  painted 
on  such  a  scale?  The  long  struggle  of  Roman- 
ticism, moving  in  the  direction  of  Browning's 
new  type  and  new  method,  culminates  in  this 
masterpiece  and  shows  itself  capable  of  pro- 
digious effects.  No  wonder  the  coming  of 
something  so  huge  created  disturbance  in  the 
public  mind.  People  must  be  either  violently 
repelled  or  ardently  attracted  by  this  unflinch- 
ing poet  of  the  personal  life.  We  may  say  that 
Tennyson  and  Browning  summarize  the  ima- 
ginative life  of  their  century.  Browning  shows 
the  beginning  of  that  Naturalism  which 
henceforth,  for  good  or  ill,  was  to  flood  our 
poetry.  Tennyson  sings  regretfully  the  shim- 
mering charm,  the  ideal  beauty,  the  refine- 
ment, the  wistfulness,  which  were  soon  to  pass 
away. 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  READING 

The  two  volumes  of  "Selections"  from  Browning, 
drawn  up  by  himself  (Macmillan),  seems  to  me  judicious, 
if  somewhat  too  full.  The  classified  lists  of  his  more  not- 
able poems,  already  given  in  the  text,  sufficiently  indicate 
my  preferences  and  need  not  be  repeated  here.  Any  one 
undertaking  "The  Ring  and  the  Book"  for  the  first  time 
should  read  Browning's  Introduction,  especially  the  last 
half,  and  either  the  speech  of  Caponsacchi  or  of  Pompilia. 


This  book  is 

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